Patient participation: causing moral stress in psychiatric nursing?

The aim of this study was to explore psychiatric nurses' experiences and perspectives regarding patient participation. Patient participation is an ambiguous, complex and poorly defined concept with practical/clinical, organisational, legal and ethical aspects, some of which in psychiatric units may cause ethical predicaments and moral stress in nurses, for instance when moral caring acts are thwarted by constraints.

An explorative quantitative pilot study was conducted at a psychiatric subacute unit through three focus group interviews with a total of nine participants. A thematic analytic approach was chosen. Preliminary empirical findings were discussed with participants before the final data analysis. Ethical research guidelines were followed.

Patient participation is a difficult ideal to realise because of vagueness of aim and content. What was regarded as patient participation differed. Some interviewees held that patients may have a say within the framework of restraints while others saw patient participation as superficial. The interviewees describe themselves as patient's spokespersons and contributing to patients participating in their treatment as a great responsibility. They felt squeezed between their ethical values and the 'system'. They found themselves in a negotiator role trying to collaborate with both the doctors and the patients. Privatisation of a political ideal makes nurses vulnerable to burn out and moral distress.

Nurses have a particular ethical responsibility towards vulnerable patients, and may themselves be vulnerable when caught in situations where their professional and moral values are threatened. Unclear concepts make for unclear division of responsibility. Patient participation is often a neglected value in current psychiatric treatment philosophy. When healthcare workers' ethical sensibilities are compromised, this may result in moral stress.