"I can't be the nurse I want to be": Counter-stories of moral distress in nurses' narratives of pediatric oncology caregiving.

Autor: Molinaro ML; Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Graduate Program, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, ON N6G 2V4, Canada; Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University, David Braley Health Sciences Centre 100 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8P 1H6, Canada. Electronic address: molinaml@mcmaster.ca., Polzer J; Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street London, ON N6A 5B8, Canada; School of Health Studies, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Huron Drive, London, ON N6A 2K5, Canada., Rudman DL; School of Occupational Therapy, The University of Western Ontario, 1201 Western Road, London, ON N6G 1H1, Canada., Savundranayagam M; School of Health Studies, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Huron Drive, London, ON N6A 2K5, Canada.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Social science & medicine (1982) [Soc Sci Med] 2023 Mar; Vol. 320, pp. 115677. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jan 14.
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115677
Abstrakt: As a term used in nursing and other health professions to describe when one is prevented by institutional constraints from pursuing the right course of action, moral distress has gained traction to examine the effects of restructuring on health and social care providers. Using a critical narrative methodology, this paper presents the counter-stories of nine pediatric oncology nurses in Ontario, Canada, whose stories illustrate the embeddedness of their caregiving and moral distress within institutional contexts that leave them stretched thin amongst multiple caregiving and administrative demands, and that limit their capacities to be the nurses they want to be. Informed by feminist philosophical theorizations of moral distress, we elucidate how the nurses' counter-stories: (i) re-locate the sources of their moral distress within institutional constraints that fracture their moral identities and moral relationships, and (ii) dis-locate dominant narratives of technological cure by ascribing value and meaning to the relational care through which they sustain moral responsibilities with patients and their families. By making visible the relational care that they find meaningful and that brings them in proximity to patients and families, these counter-stories assist nurses in restoring their damaged moral identities. This study demonstrates the power of identifying and mobilizing counter-stories in tracing and critically examining the conditions that structure nurses' experiences of moral distress. The findings add theoretical and empirical depth to contemporary understandings of moral distress and complement ongoing public discussion of burnout among nurses and other health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These counter-narratives may act as resources for resistance among nurses, help to reduce the distance between management and health care workers, and catalyze changes in policy and practice so that nurses, and the full scope of their caregiving, are valued.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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