Iranian nurses\u2019 views on barriers to moral courage in practice: A qualitative descriptive study

Mahnaz Rakhshan,Noushin Mousazadeh,Fahimeh Alsadat Hosseini,Hamideh Hakimi

doi:10.1186/s12912-021-00728-7

Abstract

BackgroundNursing is a caring profession. Due to the nature of their work, nurses need to have the moral courage to deliver safe nursing care. Research results have reported a low level of moral courage in the majority of nurses. The current study aimed to identify the barriers to show moral courage in Iranian nurses.MethodsThis study was qualitative research that was conducted using conventional content analysis. Data was gathered using in-person, semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Interviews were conducted from March to September 2020. Purposeful sampling was used and sampling was continued until data saturation was reached. Participants were 19 nurses working in hospitals in Iran.ResultsAccording to data analysis, six categories and three themes were extracted. Themes are “organizational failure”, “deterrent personal identity” and “defeated professional identity”.ConclusionsThe results of this study revealed the barriers to show moral courage which were usually overlooked in previous quantitative studies. It appears that the elimination of these barriers is an effective step in the improvemalet of nurses’ competencies. The results of this study can be helpful in the developmalet of programs to address the factors affecting nurses’ moral courage.

Highlights

Among all the personal characteristics and professional competencies, moral courage is the basic component of being a good nurse
Three themes were extracted from the data analysis: organizational failure, deterrent personal identity, and defeated professional identity
The findings of the present study showed that organizational failure, deterrent personal identity, and defeated professional identity are the barriers to moral courage

Summary

Introduction

Nurses are the principal group of service providers in health care systems [2] and have a significant impact on the quality of health care [3]. They often face challenging ethical issues in clinical settings [4]. A person who has moral courage decides and acts constantly, and consciously based on his/her moral values [8,9,10]. Nurses, based on the nature of their profession, need moral courage to emphasize humanitarian care and resist not doing immoral things [11]. Moral courage helps the nurses to provide acceptable care for the patient, the family, and the community [12]

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Conclusion