COVID-19 related moral distress among registered nurses in Wales
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Addressing moral distress among nurses after the COVID-19 emergency: The ASSISTANCE study
IRAS ID
294767
Contact name
Tessa Watts
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Background:
Keeping healthcare staff well supports them and ensures services can provide good quality care. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that nurses have faced more working pressures and are more likely to experience traumatic events. We know that work pressure for nurses can contribute to them feeling more depressed, anxious, and burned out. The pandemic may also mean people experience more moral distress. Moral distress happens when someone feels their professional values are impacted by things in their environment. We know that experiencing moral distress can be bad for mental and physical health.
Aims:
We would like to:
Know more about the impact of moral distress on nurses and nursing students in Wales during Covid-19.
Understand whether nurses and nursing students find existing support helpful for coping with moral distress.
Methods:
There are three parts of the project:
A survey with around 3680 nurses and nursing students who cared for people with Covid-19 in Wales. These participants will complete online questionnaires about their mood, experiences of moral distress. They will also provide demographic information about themselves. Statistical analysis will describe nurses and nursing students who worked with people with Covid-19 during the pandemic. We will explore whether moral distress is associated with mental health difficulties like anxiety and depression. Open ended questions will ask about participants’ experiences for further details.
Interviews with around 20 participants who are nurses or nursing students and had support from Health for Health Professionals Wales. We want to speak to a range of people about their experiences and the support they got. We will type up the recorded interviews and analyse them using thematic analysis.
We will use what we learn from the survey and interviews to write guidance about moral distress for leaders to support nurses with moral distress.
REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/PR/1172
Date of REC Opinion
28 Sep 2021
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion