[Moral distress in nursing care]. / Il moral distress nell'assistenza infermieristica.

In nursing practice, the ability to make decisions regarding patients and to act on them is considered to be an expression of the professional nursing role. Problems may arise when a nurses would like to perform an action they believe morally correct but which are conflictual with the habits, organization or politics of the health structure in which they work. This inevitably produces moral distress in nurses who feel impotent to act as they feel they should. Although a certain amount of moral distress is part and parcel of the nursing profession , when it is excessive or prolonged it may become unacceptable and culminate in burn-out and the relative consequences. The aim of the study was to compare the level of moral stress in 111 Italian nurses working in different Operative Units to identify those clinical situations significantly associated with moral stress using the MDS scale. Similarly to studies performed in the USA, the level of moral stress in the 3 different work contexts was moderate, although some clinical situations were related to significant stress levels.