Nurses' Moral Experiences of Ethically Meaningful End-of-Life Care: Distress, Resilience, Responsibility, and Care

Abstract

BackgroundMoral distress, the phenomenon in which an agent is constrained in acting on their ethical choice, is a reoccurring theme in the literature on nurses' experiences of end-of-life care (EOLC). Understanding moral engagement solely through a lens of moral distress can be limiting—as such, we sought to explore the diverse experiences nurses consider ethically meaningful in their palliative and EOLC practice.Purpose and MethodsThis article presents an exploration and analysis of stories told to us, within an interpretive description study, by five nurses practicing in EOLC in diverse settings across Canada. Although these stories were told to us in a research context, the purpose of this theory article is to explore what these stories demonstrate about the moral engagement of nurses caring for dying patients.FindingsOur analysis suggests that while moral distress is a feature of nursing stories, so too are many other dimensions of moral experience, including resilience, responsibility, and care.Implications for PracticeExpanding how we understand nurses' moral engagement in the care of dying patients has implications for how we account for the many responsibilities that nurses shoulder in striving to provide “good” care to people at the end of life.