Moral distress in healthcare professionals: what is it and how should we respond?

[Note: The slide presentation and video are not available from this event.] Over the past 20 years, the study of moral distress has garnered great interest among healthcare professionals, philosophers, and researchers due to the ubiquity and dangers of the phenomenon. The intersections of exponential growth of scientific knowledge, the availability of medical information to the public through the internet, the increasing complexity of healthcare delivery through formal and informal teams, and shifting notions of professionalism fuel the sustained relevance of moral distress. This presentation will explore moral distress and advance strategies for dealing with it. Healthcare professional data from a large multi-site study (N=706) will be presented showing the importance of team- and system-level causes of moral distress. Relationships between moral distress levels and key variables such as ethical climate and practice setting will be presented. Discussion of the sources of moral distress will assist participants to target interventions in their settings that can minimize this problem and its negative consequences.