Responses of ICU Nurses to Moral Distress: A qualitative Study

Purposes of the study: Moral distress elicits some responses from nurses. Identifying these responses can lead into developing effective strategies which assist nurses with facing them. The present study tries to elicit responses of ICU nurses to moral distress. This is a qualitative research with an analytical approach. The required data was gathered through deep and unstructural interviews (retrospective interviews). 13 individual interviews and two group interviews were conducted with clinical nurses working in ICUs of different cities in Iran. Samples were taken purposefully and data analysis was carried out by analyzing the qualitative content. A nalyzing the content, 3 central themes, 5 subthemes, and 28 categories were obtained. The main themes included "psychosomatic reactions", "spiritual reactions", and "coping methods” of nurses in response to moral distress in ICUs. the obtained results of this study asserted that facing moral distress, ICU nurses produce various reactions and adopt alternative coping methods, some of which are positive and some are not. Applying positive coping methods and preventing harmful outcomes, nursing administrators can help ICU nurses to reduce moral distress.