ARTIKLID LÕPUTÖÖDEST
ÕDEDE MORAALNE DÜSTRESS
Nurses’ Moral Distress
Kätlin Peet, Laura Tatrik, Ireen Bruus
Abstract Nurses’ moral distress has been researched and defined by many authors in different ways. It has been studied in North-America, Europe and Australia. In Estonia it’s a new topic. Moral distress is experienced by nurses intensively. However, there is lack of conceptual clarity as to the meaning of moral distress. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to describe the nature of nurses’ moral distress; the situations causing nurses’ moral distress; nurses’ reactions to moral distress experience and nurses’ ways of coping with moral distress. This study was a theoretical literature review. 26 articles were used to compose this final paper. Articles were found utilizing the following electronic databases: EBSCOhost, CINAHL, Medline, PubMed, Google Scholar. Additionally, two web-based dictionaries were used. One approach to describing moral distress is to define it as the negative emotions, sensations and a feeling of tension caused by participating in a morally complex situation. Moral distress has mostly been associated with nurses, but it can be experienced by all health care professionals and also by people in other professions. Moral distress in nursing can be caused by different factors in work related situations. Primarily these situations comprise occurrences where nurses would prefer to act differently from what the laws and the regulations permit or what the physician orders. Nurses’ moral distress can also be caused by working with colleagues who are deemed to be incompetent or by working in a collective with an insufficient number of personnel. Moral distress experience 124
