Moral distress and desire to quit: A cross-sectional descriptive study of nurses working in teaching hospitals of Jahrom in 2016

Nurseschr('39') ethical distress means acting in contradiction with their ethical beliefs, which today has become one of the challenges of health systems because it has devastating effects on nurses and can lead them to abandon their jobs. Therefore, these factors should be considered together. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between ethical distress and willingness to leave their work among nurses working in Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in 2016.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in 2016. All nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Jahrom University of Medical Sciences were enrolled. Data collection tools included three demographic information questionnaires, Corleychr('39')s ethical distress questionnaire and nurseschr('39') willingness to remain in the Nursing profession. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 21 and descriptive and inferential statistical tests.

The mean age of the participants was 28±5.4 years. Nurseschr('39') willingness to leave the service was 1.04±1.03 and ethical distress severity score was 0.72.±2.44%. Spearman test results showed that there was no significant relationship between tendency to quit work and moral distress in severity (p-value> 0.337) and repetition (p-value>0.444). Mann-Whitney test showed that there was no significant relationship between gender variables with variables of desire to quit, severity of moral distress and repetition of moral distress (p-value>0.05). The results of Kruskal-Wallis test showed that there was no significant relationship between educational level, service sector and type of employment with variables of tendency to quit, severity of moral distress and repetition of moral distress (p-value> 0.05).

The results of the present study showed that there was no significant relationship between mean moral distress in two dimensions of severity and repetition with the intention to quit nurses. Although the ethical distress reported in this study is moderate, this lack of relevance cannot be taken into account, but sometimes nurses have to be reluctant to quit due to lack of work and difficult economic conditions. Therefore, it is recommended that appropriate measures be taken to reduce the stressors due to the existing conditions.