title: Ethical conflict in critical care nursing: Correlation between exposure and types.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ethical conflicts in nursing have generally been studied in terms of temporal frequency and the degree of conflict. This study presents a new perspective for examining ethical conflict in terms of the degree of exposure to conflict and its typology.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim was to examine the level of exposure to ethical conflict for professional nurses in critical care units and to analyze the relation between this level and the types of ethical conflict and moral states.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a descriptive correlational study. Central and dispersion, normality tests, and analysis of variance were carried out.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 203 nurses were from two third-level teaching hospitals in Spain. Both centers are part of the University of Barcelona Health Network. Participants filled out the Ethical Conflict in Nursing Questionnaire-Critical Care Version.
  
  
  METHODS
  This investigation received the approval of the ethical committees for clinical investigation of the two participating hospitals. Participants were informed of the authorship and aims of the study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The index of exposure to ethical conflict was [Formula: see text]. The situations involving analgesic treatment and end-of-life care were shown to be frequent sources of conflict. The types of ethical conflict and moral states generally arranged themselves from lesser to greater levels of index of exposure to ethical conflict.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The moderate level of exposure to ethical conflict was consistent with other international studies. However, the situations related with family are infrequent, and this presents differences with previous research. The results suggest that there is a logical relationship between types of conflict and levels of exposure to ethical conflict.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The types of ethical conflict and moral states were related with the levels of exposure to ethical conflict. The new perspective was shown to be useful for analyzing the phenomenon of ethical conflict in the nurse.
authors.affiliation: University of Barcelona, Spain annafalco@ub.edu.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Falcó-Pegueroles
authors.affiliation: University of Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lluch-Canut
authors.affiliation: University of Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Roldan-Merino
authors.affiliation: University of Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Josefina
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Goberna-Tricas
authors.affiliation: University of Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guàrdia-Olmos
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D064648:Critical Care Nursing / Q000941:ethics*; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009014:Morals; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013030:Spain; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Critical care nursing; ethical conflict model; moral distress; types of ethical conflict