title: To stay or to go, to speak or stay silent, to act or not to act: moral distress as experienced by psychologists.
abstract: The moral distress of psychologists working in psychiatric and mental health care settings was explored in an interdisciplinary, hermeneutic phenomenological study situated at the University of Alberta, Canada. Moral distress is the state experienced when moral choices and actions are thwarted by constraints. Psychologists described specific incidents in which they felt their integrity had been compromised by such factors as institutional and interinstitutional demands, team conflicts, and interdisciplinary disputes. They described dealing with the resulting moral distress by such means as silence, taking a stance, acting secretively, sustaining themselves through work with clients, seeking support from colleagues, and exiting. Recognizing moral distress can lead to a significant shift in the way we perceive moral choices and understand the moral context of practice.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Nursing and John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre, 5-16 University Extension Centre, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2T3. wendy.austin@ualberta.ca
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Austin
authors.forename: Marlene
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rankel
authors.forename: Leon
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kagan
authors.forename: Vangie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Bergum
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lemermeyer
mesh_terms: D032781:Codes of Ethics; D028661:Complicity; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000941:ethics* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D011584:Psychology / Q000941:ethics*; D013315:Stress, Psychological