| Learning Objective #1: Describe the sources and frequency of moral distress for nurses working in an academic/ teaching hospital using the Moral Distress Scale (Corly et al., 2001) | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify and evaluate interventions to address moral distress for nurses |
Over the past decade, evolutions in health care environments, including healthcare reform and advances in biotechnology, coupled with the increasing diversity of both our nursing and patient populations, have created significant ethical challenges for nurses and nurse leaders. Yet many nurses and organizations are ill prepared to deal with these challenges, and this lack of preparation can lead to moral distress in nurses. Moral distress occurs in “situations in which nurses cannot fulfill their ethical obligations and commitments, or they fail to pursue what they believe to be the right course of actions, or fail to live up to their own expectations of ethical practice for one or more of the following reasons: errors in judgement, insufficient personal resolve or other circumstances beyond their control”(CNA,2002,pg 6). Nurses have identified the need for increased nursing leadership and administrative support to enable ethical and moral nursing practice. This paper will explore one organization’s approach to understanding moral distress as experienced by nurses, and identifying resources and strategies to assist nurses in developing approaches to work through complex ethical issues. Using the Moral Distress Scale (Corly et al, 2001), the authors evaluated both the sources and frequency of moral distress for nurses working in two large general medical units in an academic tertiary care hospital. The results of the survey were used to develop interventions to assist nurses and nurse leaders to address issues of moral distress. The authors will present the survey results and organizational interventions, which are directed about clinical nurses and nursing leaders, along with evaluation of the current effectiveness of the interventions. Nurses must take the lead in providing coherent leadership in addressing ethical issues in our increasingly diverse and complex health care environments.
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