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Moral Distress And Associated Factors Among Baccalaureate Nursing Students: A Multisite Descriptive Study, Lorretta Krautscheid,, Deborah A. Demeester, Valorie Orton, Austin Smith, Conor Livingston, Susan M. Mclennon

Faculty Publications - College of Nursing

Moral distress and its associated negative consequences among postlicensure nurses have been extensively discussed in the literature. Moral distress is defined as knowing the ethically correct action one should take but feeling constrained from acting on one’s convictions because of internal and external constraints (Epstein & Delgado, 2010; Hamric, 2014; Jameton, 1984; McCarthy & Gastmans, 2015; Musto, Rodney, & Vanderheide, 2015). The focus in much of the reviewed literature is on measuring and describing moral distress, moral residue (lingering feelings associated with moral distress), and subsequent deleterious consequences (frustration, apathy, compassion