Moral Distress, Health and Intention to Leave: Critical Care Nurses’ Perceptions During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction Moral distress increases the risk that critical care nurses will lose the ability to provide quality nursing care. Aims To describe person-related conditions and perceptions of moral distress, health and intention to leave among critical care nurses in intensive care units, and to examine the relationship between person-related conditions, moral distress, health and intention to leave. Method Cross-sectional, with 220 critical care nurses in 15 Swedish ICUs, and data gathered via a self-reported questionnaire. Results Highest moral distress scores were reported in futile care and poor teamwork and 21% reported entertaining an intention to leave. Self-reported health was lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic and 4.1% reported pronounced exhaustion disorder. Self-reported health, reduced capacity to tolerate demands under time pressure, emotional instability or irritability, physical weakness, or being more easily fatigued and with decreased well-being were factors that had a relationship with futile care. Sleeping problems and intention to leave had a relationship with poor teamwork. Conclusions Different strategies are needed to reduce moral distress and the leadership is crucial for managing crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ethical value conflicts in healthcare and their effects on nurses’ health, turnover intent, team effectiveness, and patient safety: a longitudinal questionnaire study

“…This poses limits to the representativeness of our sample, and how these results can generalize to other populations and contexts. Although this must be acknowledged as a limitation of the present study, it seems less severe given that the results of previous studies both within a Swedish (27,34) and other (3,6,7) contexts, as well as recent literature reviews (12,26) outline similar types of value conflicts as those investigated here.…”