Exploring moral distress in the intensive care unit nurses of Shiraz Heart Center in 2013

Moral distress is a major problem in the nursing profession and is of high prevalence. The study aims to investigate the rate of moral distress among the nurses working in Cardiac Care Units (CCU) and its relationship with demographic characteristics.
In this descriptive and cross-sectional study, 60 nurses working in Cardiac Care Units (CCU) participated in the study following a cooperation announcement and on the basis of inclusion criteria. Corley's Moral Distress Scale (MDS) was completed by participants and the results of study were analyzed by SPSS:15.
According to the results of descriptive statistics, it became clear that nurses working in Cardiac Care Units (CCU) suffer from 10/7 -69/2 of moral distress in the range of moderate to severe. Based on the two-way ANOVA, no significant relationship was observed between demographic variables such as age, marital status, work experience and average weekly working hours with an average score of moral distress.
There are high rates of moral distress among the Cardiac Care Unit nurses. Educational programs regarding moral distress for nurses is recommended. Moreover, convening committees to plan and resolve ethical dilemmas for nurses in hospitals can be an effective step in addressing this problem. More studies with larger sample sizes are recommended to be conducted in different hospital wards.