What is 'moral distress' in nursing and how should we respond to it?. (360G-Wellcome-108640_Z_15_Z)

The project will use a combination of empirical and philosophical methods to explore experiences of moral distress and its meaning in context. The primary aim of the project is to build a better understanding of what moral distress means in the UK nursing context, and the secondary aim is to consider how it might be both prevented and managed. These aims will be met by meeting a series of objectives: 1) To formulate a plausible conceptual definition of moral distress through critical review of the literature. 2) To explore nurses experiences of moral distress by carrying out semi-structured face-to-face interviews with UK nurses. 3) To conduct conceptual normative analysis of the meaning of, and appropriate response to moral distress, informed by the findings from objectives 1 and 2. 4) Develop recommendations for nursing practice based on enabling nurses to recognise and respond to moral distress. The overarching methodology will be drawn from 'reflexive balancing', in which the ethical analysis of how we ought to conceptualise and respond to moral distress is guided and supported by interdisciplinary engagement with empirical findings.