Investigation of Moral Distress in the Emergency Department Nurses: A Cross-sectional Study from Northwest of Iran

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Nurses working in the emergency department increasingly face moral distress due to the nature of their profession, negatively affecting their love and compassion toward the patient. Therefore, this study sought to investigate of moral distress in the nurses of the emergency departments of the hospitals in Ardabil.

Methods: The current cross-sectional (descriptive correlational) study was conducted using consensus sampling. The study population comprised all nurses working in the emergency departments of hospitals in Ardabil in 2022(N=283; 21 people did not meet the inclusion criteria and were excluded from the study, leading to a sample size of 262). Data were gathered using standard questionnaire moral distress by Hamric et al. (2012). The data were analyzed using SPSS - 20 software and descriptive s (mean, standard deviation and frequency) and inferential statistics, including independent T-test and one-way ANOVA.

Results: Moral distress was higher than average in governmental hospitals (2.12±0.58) and below average in private and social security hospitals (1.72±0.68). In addition, there was a significant correlation between gender (p=0.001) and income (p=0.003) and MD. According to the results, the mean of MD was higher in male than female nurses. In addition, the results showed that the higher the income, the lower the MD (the significance level of the test error for the confidence level was 0.95).

Conclusion: The level of moral distress reflects the impact of conditions causing moral distress on the quality of care and the necessity to prevent such conditions by providing appropriate solutions. Informing nurses about moral distress and its consequences and providing periodic counseling can contribute to its identification and control.