Moral Distress and Related Factors Among Emergency Department Nurses

Abstract

Aim:The study determines moral distress and related factors among emergency nurses. Moral distress is one of the recurring issues in the nursing profession that has gained importance by creating changes in the health care system.Materials and Methods:An analytic-descriptive study was conducted, in which all 180 nurses working in emergency education and health centers in were included. Moral distress was measured by questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS 17Results:The findings showed that moral distress in emergency nurses (4.93±1.08) was high. Most moral distress was in the area of professional-functional competence (5.21±1.17) in the item of “unsafe conditions” (5.55±1.45). No statistically significant correlation was found between age and experience with moral distress among nurses in the emergency department. From the perspective of nurses in the study, organizational factors including barriers to education were the strongest factor influencing moral distress.Conclusion:Given that moral distress in nurses participating in the study was very high, it seems that planning to promote professionalfunctional competency of nursing practice are essential.

Keywords

• Moral distress
• nursing ethics
• emergency department services
• emergency de details