Moral resilience and intention to leave: Mediating effect of moral distress.

AIMS

This study aims to examine the mediating effect of moral distress on the relationship between moral resilience and the intention to leave.

BACKGROUND

Moral distress is a phenomenon that negatively impacts healthcare workers, healthcare institutions, and recipients. To eliminate or minimize the negative effects of moral distress, it is necessary to increase the moral resilience of nurses. Moral resilience is important in protecting against the negative effects of moral distress, such as burnout and turnover intention. In this direction, it is necessary to increase the moral resilience of nurses to reduce negative situations such as turnover intention in nurses.

METHODS

It is a descriptive-predictive study. Sociodemographic Information Form, Measure of Moral Distress - Healthcare Professionals, and Rushton Moral Resilience Scale were used to collect data from the nurses. A total of 220 clinical nurses were recruited.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Approval was obtained from the university's non-interventional ethics committee, and informed consent was obtained from the participants.

RESULTS

The study found a total moral distress score of 6.39 ± 0.3.12 and moral resilience score of 2.69 ± 0.48. A moderate and weak negative correlation was found between moral distress and moral resilience. Moral distress has a moderating effect on the intention to leave nursing (β = -0.158,

CONCLUSIONS

Moral resilience leads to decreased intention to leave, and moral distress mediates this situation. An increase in moral distress decreases moral resilience and increases intention to leave. It can be assumed that if moral distress is not controlled, increasing moral resilience will not affect the intention to leave the job.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest concerning this article’s research, authorship, and/or publication.