Moral distress and futile treatments: cognitive investigation about the perception of the nursing students

• Autores: Simone Conoci, Elena Cristofori, Caterina Galletti
• Localización: Medicina y Ética: Revista internacional de bioética, deontología y ética médica, ISSN-e 2594-2166, ISSN 0188-5022, Vol. 29, Nº. 3 (julio-septiembre/July-September), 2018, págs. 503-526
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Angustia moral y tratamientos fútiles: investigación cognoscitiva sobre la percepción de los estudiantes de enfermería
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • The caregivers in their daily professional work use a set of deontological rules that justify the morality and clean hands of the assistance action of which they are guarantors. Nevertheless, the hyper specialization of knowledge and the development of new technologies, constantly put professionals of healthcare in the impossible situation of reconcile always what “it is possible to do” with that which “is mandatory” and “ethically legal” to do for a patient, a condition that potentially generates a moral distress in the caregiver. Nurses who are under pressure with moral distress, live a strong situation of discomfort, because they recognize the right behavior to have, in a certain clinical situation, but due to several reasons, they can’t perform as they should, having to act contrary to their own professional values. Research on moral distress has been performed mainly inmale nurses. In this work several situations that create a moral conflict in the daily lives of the male and female nurses students have been examined, related to all those situations of healthcare, brought to the limit of an ethical medicine, that is aware in terms of proportionality of the use media and the prejudice or benefit of such treatments for the patient. A phenomenological study has been performed with semi-structured written interviews, on a purposeful sample of nursing students at a Roman Campus. The contents of the interview have been analyzed under the Giorgi’s method. The outcome has shown that the moral distress occurs in the living experience of the student who is already capable to outline unpleasant situations, causes, effects and, in limited cases, possible strategies to respond to the distress experienced in the clinical settings.