Nursing is based on solid ethical foundations regarding humanity, life, and health, and is an obligation to protect patients from harm while respecting their rights and dignity. Moreover, a clash between personal values with those of the employing organization can lead to ethical dilemmas and moral distress. Nurses are often confronted with ethical dilemmas due to unsatisfactory alternatives, and the opposing choices of organization. Both ethical dilemmas and moral distress impact the quality of patient care and affect the nurses’ work environment. Institutional policies and practices, interdisciplinary team conflicts, and staffing shortages limit nurses’ ability to act according to their professional and personal moral values and beliefs, resulting in ethical implications and poor care delivery that become a threat to personal and professional integrity and identity (McCarthy & Gastmans, 2015). Moral distress can therefore affect role morality when personal beliefs and values are compromised and thus, can negotiate the professional practice. Nurse scarcity creates difficulties in fulfilling the nurses’ professional roles and in balancing the needs of individual patients, meeting the demands of employers, keeping true to personal values, and working within the ethical context of the profession (Vryonides,
Nursing is based on solid ethical foundations regarding humanity, life, and health, and is an obligation to protect patients from harm while respecting their rights and dignity. Moreover, a clash between personal values with those of the employing organization can lead to ethical dilemmas and moral distress. Nurses are often confronted with ethical dilemmas due to unsatisfactory alternatives, and the opposing choices of organization. Both ethical dilemmas and moral distress impact the quality of patient care and affect the nurses’ work environment. Institutional policies and practices, interdisciplinary team conflicts, and staffing shortages limit nurses’ ability to act according to their professional and personal moral values and beliefs, resulting in ethical implications and poor care delivery that become a threat to personal and professional integrity and identity (McCarthy & Gastmans, 2015). Moral distress can therefore affect role morality when personal beliefs and values are compromised and thus, can negotiate the professional practice. Nurse scarcity creates difficulties in fulfilling the nurses’ professional roles and in balancing the needs of individual patients, meeting the demands of employers, keeping true to personal values, and working within the ethical context of the profession (Vryonides,