Moral Distress Experience in Nursing: Perceptions of Nurses: Descriptive Study

The term moral distress, one of the problems encountered most frequently by nurses, describes the situations that arise from some constraints when a nurse feels that the correct action to take is different from what he or she is tasked with doing. This study aims at determining the situations that lead to moral distress and factors that affect them. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted through face-to-face interviews at two public hospitals and a university hospital e in the Aydın between January and March 2018. The research data were collected by using Personal Information Form and Moral Distress Scale for Nurses. Four hundred forty eight nurses working in the hospitals participated in this study. The total mean score obtained from the Moral Distress Scale was 36.74+14.32, and the highest mean score obtained from the sub-scales was taken from the time subdimension and the lowest score average from the possibilities sub-dimension. When the Moral Distress Scale mean scores are analyzed according to the demographic characteristics of the nurses; a statistical significance was found in the sub-dimensions in terms of age and hospital (p<0.05). In this study, the mean of moral distress of the nurses was found to be moderate. The age of the nurses and the institution where they work have a significant impact on their moral distress. It was concluded that nurses experienced the highest level of distress in the moral distress sub-dimensions in the time sub-dimension.