تنش اخلاقی در پرستاران شاغل در مراکز آموزشی -درمانی دانشگاه‌های علوم پزشکی شمال‌غرب کشور

One of the most important issues in nursing ethics is moral distress, which is a severe psychological problem among nurses. The purpose of this study was to determine the nurses’ moral distress in the hospitals of the northwest of Iran.This was a cross-sectional study in which 418 nurses were selected by randomized multistep sampling method in the northwest of Iran in 2012. Data collection was done using the moral distress standard scale with high reliability and validity. In order to analyze data, descriptive (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percent) and inferential statistics (independent t-test and one way ANOVA) were used.The mean score of nurses’ moral distress was 148.49 ± 32.93, and 222 nurses (53%) suffered from severe moral distress. Of the three provinces under study, Zanjan (152.46 ± 35.88) and intensive care units (152.72 ± 33.36) had the highest moral distress scores. Among the respondents’ demographic characteristics, province (P < 0.01), education (P < 0.05), type of shift (P < 0.05) and job status (P < 0.05) were significantly related to the level of moral distress experienced by the nurses.Due to the high level of moral distress in the nursing profession, dealing with it requires a lot of attention. Studies on casual and predictive factors in different wards and teaching coping strategies to nurses appear to be necessary in order to address this issue.