Abstract
Ethical issues continue to be an important aspect in the practice of professional nursing. The complexities of nursing practice begin in nursing school and continue throughout a nurse's career. Advances in health-care technology, emphasis on cost-effectiveness, and higher acuity level patients in hospitals lead to ethical conflicts and a phenomenon known as moral distress. Moral distress constitutes a serious problem in nursing practice. Studies regarding moral distress correlate the phenomenon to nurse turnover, intent to leave, burnout, job dissatisfaction, and stress. Moral distress differs from experiencing an ethical dilemma in that moral distress is the inability to do what one considers morally correct due to perceived or actual organizational constraints. The purpose of this nonexperimental descriptive correlational quantitative study with convenience sampling was to examine the relationships between the experience of moral distress, the perception of the practice environment, and likelihood of resigning from a clinical position within the Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA) system. The target population included members of a professional nursing organization. Data was collected utilizing the Moral Distress Scale (MDS) survey instrument, the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Workforce Index (PES-NWI), and demographic data. Results showed frequency and intensity of moral distress experienced influenced perception of the practice environment, negatively. Additionally, the intensity and frequency of moral distress experienced as well as perception of the practice environment, did not influence the likelihood of resigning a clinical position.
Sigma Membership
Omicron Delta
Type
Dissertation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Descriptive/Correlational
Research Approach
Quantitative Research
Keywords:
Moral Conflicts, Intention to Leave, Practice Environment, Veterans
Advisors
Cauthen, Delores
Degree
PhD
Degree Grantor
Capella University
Degree Year
2012
Recommended Citation
Kelly, Mary E., "A quantitative study of moral distress in VHA nurses" (2023). Dissertations. 1534.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/dissertations/1534
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.
All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.
All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
None: Degree-based Submission
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2023-05-04
Full Text of Presentation
wf_yes
Description
This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3549463; ProQuest document ID: 1284156009. The author still retains copyright.