{"title":"Moral distress among healthcare professionals in long-term care settings: a scoping review.","authors":"Floor Vinckers, Elleke Landeweer","doi":"10.1186/s13010-025-00171-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Aim: </strong>To explore the body of knowledge available regarding the moral distress of healthcare professionals in long-term care settings, focusing on influencing factors and strategies to cope with moral distress.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Scoping review.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This scoping review follows the guidelines of the PRISMA-ScR protocol (Tricco et al. 2018) Searches were done using a strategy that included MeSH terms and free text terms.</p><p><strong>Data sources: </strong>Data sources were PubMed, CINAHL, Psychinfo and Embase. Searches were done in October 2023 without any date restrictions.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Eight articles were included in this review. Moral distress can impact the wellbeing of healthcare professionals. Influencing factors of moral distress of health care professionals appeared to be lack of resources, lack of communication and incongruence with colleagues. Strategies to cope with moral distress were talking about ethical issues with others, receiving support from colleagues and managers, and seeking support from outside the team or organization. Individual healthcare professionals relied on their personal characteristics or their professional identity and used rationalization, distancing themselves or acceptance of the situation to cope with their moral distress.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Moral distress of healthcare professionals in long-term care settings appears not differently experienced than moral distress among healthcare professionals in other healthcare settings. This can be beneficial in learning from each other, but also raises the question whether moral distress is too broadly defined.</p><p><strong>Impact: </strong>This review addressed the scope and experiences of moral distress in long-term care settings. Future research can contribute to further insight into if and how specific features of long-term care are of influence on moral distress and formulate tailored strategies to lessen moral distress.</p><p><strong>Reporting method: </strong>PRISMA-ScR.</p>","PeriodicalId":56062,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy Ethics and Humanities in Medicine","volume":"20 1","pages":"8"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12160104/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Philosophy Ethics and Humanities in Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13010-025-00171-5","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Aim: To explore the body of knowledge available regarding the moral distress of healthcare professionals in long-term care settings, focusing on influencing factors and strategies to cope with moral distress.
Design: Scoping review.
Methods: This scoping review follows the guidelines of the PRISMA-ScR protocol (Tricco et al. 2018) Searches were done using a strategy that included MeSH terms and free text terms.
Data sources: Data sources were PubMed, CINAHL, Psychinfo and Embase. Searches were done in October 2023 without any date restrictions.
Results: Eight articles were included in this review. Moral distress can impact the wellbeing of healthcare professionals. Influencing factors of moral distress of health care professionals appeared to be lack of resources, lack of communication and incongruence with colleagues. Strategies to cope with moral distress were talking about ethical issues with others, receiving support from colleagues and managers, and seeking support from outside the team or organization. Individual healthcare professionals relied on their personal characteristics or their professional identity and used rationalization, distancing themselves or acceptance of the situation to cope with their moral distress.
Conclusion: Moral distress of healthcare professionals in long-term care settings appears not differently experienced than moral distress among healthcare professionals in other healthcare settings. This can be beneficial in learning from each other, but also raises the question whether moral distress is too broadly defined.
Impact: This review addressed the scope and experiences of moral distress in long-term care settings. Future research can contribute to further insight into if and how specific features of long-term care are of influence on moral distress and formulate tailored strategies to lessen moral distress.
期刊介绍：
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine considers articles on the philosophy of medicine and biology, and on ethical aspects of clinical practice and research.
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encompasses all aspects of the philosophy of medicine and biology, and the ethical aspects of clinical practice and research. It also considers papers at the intersection of medicine and humanities, including the history of medicine, that are relevant to contemporary philosophy of medicine and bioethics.
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine is the official publication of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center.
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