Quantitative Review : Moral Distress Experienced By Nurses

As the nursing profession progresses throughout the years, its nature becomes more complex in meeting the professional standards and codes of ethics that are required by all nurses. The American Nurses Association has a specific code of ethics that each nurse should follow and adopt as their own beliefs. The public and the patients should be the priority when providing care in the healthcare setting. The knowledge and education that nurses’ gain is valuable and allows them to encourage health, avoid illness, restore health, and aid in coping for those who are all ill. (LeMone, pp.192) Given that the code of ethics is put into place, there are many registered nurses who violate these codes in various situations. The following will discuss

The process for selecting the articles for further investigation included a review of the authors, title, year of publication, research method, major variables studied, measurement, data analysis, and the findings. Moreover, this process for article selection, led to an appraisal, identification, selection, and refining of research topics (Brown, 2014). In summary, the search strategy and the different approaches with the ability to save the various search formulations was effective and efficient.

or their family’s moral code if it disagrees with the nurses own code of ethics. This is

In this paper I will analyze two articles, one is quantitative and the other is qualitative. I will describe the quantitative methods used including the research question addressed, the hypothesis, and variables. I will identify the population and sample. I will discuss the reliability and validity of the instruments used. I will then discuss the design of the article and how the findings were analyzed. For the qualitative article, I will identify the design of the article, the methods used and the strategies used for analyzing the data. Lastly, I will look at the implications for practice in the qualitative article, discuss other journals that might be interested in publishing the article and discuss how this article might

The way I plan on conducting research is through a literary analysis, as I am a high school student with very few resources to gather large amounts of primary data. The types of literature that will be in this paper will include studies, meta-analysis, news articles, and magazine articles. By gathering this information, I will be more equipped to conduct more intensive research in the

Nursing is not an easy job and those who chose it as their profession are truly special people. Nurses are confronted with ethical decisions that need to be made on a daily basis. Often they know the right thing to do but because of circumstances like institutional structure and conflicts with others, obstacles are created and distress ensues (Jenner, 2001). It is during times like these that nurses must rely on the training that they have received as well as the code of ethics that has been set down for their profession in order to do the right thing.

Nurses are faced with ethical issues and dilemmas on a regular basis. Nurses must understand his or her values and morals to be able to deal adequately with the ethical issues he or she is faced with. Some ethical issues nurses are exposed to may be more difficult than others and the ethical decision making process is learned over time.

Such factors may affect the degree to which nurses are able to fulfill their moral obligations and/or the number and type of ethical dilemmas they may face.

Moral distress is experienced by nurses every day in today’s health care system. Moral distress has been found to be manifested as anger, frustration, guilt, loss of self-worth, depression, powerlessness and helplessness (Zuzelo, 2007, p. 346). Failure to recognize and manage moral distress is causing nurses to be “burned out” have high turnover rate, and even leaving nursing profession all together.

While the nursing profession is fulfilling, it is not without challenges. Nurses are faced with a multitude of ethical dilemmas in clinical practice on a daily basis. According to Fant (2012) no matter where nurses function in their diverse roles, they are faced with ethical decisions that can impact them and their patients. Some examples of moral issues that nurses encounter in contemporary nursing practice and research include but not limited to: refusal of treatment, scarcity of resources, disagreement with caregivers, treating patients with impaired decision-making, futile treatment decisions for cancer patients, end-of-life decisions, advanced treatment directives, and euthanasia (Leuter, Petrucci, Mattei, Tabassi, & Lancia, 2013).

Moral distress is describe as the phenomenon in which a nurse understands and has clarity about a right action to take, but is constrained from taking it. It differs from an ethical dilemma in which there is recognition of a problem; in which at least two ethically justifiable but opposing solutions can be applied (American Nurses Association, 2014). Moral distress was first recognized among the nursing field; because of this, many of the studies have focused on the nursing population. However moral distress has also expanded to many other fields, making it now a multidisciplinary concern

Thank you for very interesting and eye-opening post. Reading your post, and as it is exemplified in posts from our colleagues as well, moral distress and the moral residue is an ongoing problem in many healthcare settings. Pauly, Varcoe, & Storch (2012) point out that many types of research have shown that moral distress is a widespread problem for many healthcare professionals in a wide range of acute and community healthcare settings. It seems that nurses often find themselves in the position of compromising their moral integrity. And, when moral integrity is threatened, for sure moral distress will occur. And, when moral distress stays unresolved, it can over time bring about moral residue. I do not think that we can eliminate moral distress, however, we can try to minimize it. Pauly et al. (2012) indicated that more research in the area of moral distress and the moral residue is needed. Also, joined ethics education of nurses, physicians, and other members of healthcare teams are the way how to minimize moral distress in healthcare settings.

Nursing, in my view, has always been a field in which moral courage was inherent. Nursing is one of the few fields in which individuals disregard their own personal wellbeing in favor of other people’s health. Moral courage is an elusive topic to define, as it is such an intangible concept. According to Murray, “moral courage is considered to be the pinnacle of ethical behavior; it requires a steadfast commitment to fundamental ethical principles despite potential risks, such as threats to reputation, shame, emotional anxiety, isolation from colleagues, retaliation, and loss of employment (2010.) To exemplify this issue, Murray continued to give an example of moral courage with a novice nurse named Emily.

The environment of nursing practice nowadays is becoming more complex. This intricacy can lead to conflict and trigger potential moral distress. It is pivotal that nurse leaders or advanced practice nurses support direct care nurses in dealing with ethical dilemmas and tackle these situations in their own work by exhibiting moral courage (Edmonson, 2010). Nursing leaders assumption of the benefits of leadership also assumes ethical concerns.

The following case presentation illustrates the moral distress a nurse may experience when her patient advocacy meets resistance, and her moral courage is challenged. It also describes ineffective management strategies to help nurses resolve the problem. If doctor or supervisors will hear Joanna and could recognize early that patient has ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, the surgery would save Mrs. Kelly life. Joanna 's conflicting values were feeling that something is not right with the patient. She was doing what was in her power to make others pay attention that