Relationship Between Spiritual Health and Moral Distress of Nurses Working in Emergency Department of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences Hospitals

Undesirable experience as “moral distress” is one of the major issues faced by nurses when making moral decisions. The spiritual dimension is one of the dimensions that influences their moral distress; therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between spiritual health and the moral distress of nurses working in the emergency departments. In this descriptive-analytic study, 140 nurses working in the emergency departments of the educational and medical centers of Hamedan participated by census sampling. Data were collected through a three-part questionnaire, including demographic information, Paloutzian and Ellison spiritual health questionnaires and Corly moral distress questionnaire. The data was analyzed by Chi-square test and Pearson correlation coefficients using SPSS software, version 16. The mean age of participants was 31.9 ± 7.31 years. The spiritual health score and moral distress of most nurses were moderate. A negative and significant correlation was observed between spiritual health and the severity of nurses' moral distress, (r = -0.200, p = 0.05), meaning that the higher the nurse's spiritual health score, the lower their moral distress. The results indicate that spiritual health is an effective parameter in reducing moral distress in nurses, so it is suggested to pay attention to spiritual’s dimension in promotion of nurses' health.