Relationship between perceived organizational justice and moral distress in intensive care unit nurses

The nature of the nursing profession pays more attention to ethics of healthcare than its therapeutic dimension. One of the prevalent moral issues in this profession is moral distress. Moral distress appears more in intensive care units due to the widespread need for moral decision-making regarding treatment and care in emergency situations. In this connection, organizational justice is of high importance and, as a significant motivational tool, leaves important impacts upon attitude and behavior of personnel.

This study aimed at investigation of the relationship between perceived organizational justice and moral distress in intensive care unit nurses.

This is a descriptive-correlational research which examined the relationship between perceived organizational justice and moral distress in intensive care unit nurses.

A total of 284 intensive care unit nurses were selected via census sampling. The data were collected through questionnaires and then were analyzed via SPSS-20 using Pearson and Spearman correlation tests.

This study was approved by the Committee of Ethics in Medical Research. Completion of informed consent form, guarantee of the confidentiality of information, explanation on purposes of the research, and voluntary participation in the study were moral considerations observed in this study.

There was a statistically significant negative correlation between the total perceived organizational justice and the total moral distress (p = 0.024, r = -0.137) and also between "procedural and interactional justice and errors" and "not respecting the ethics principles." Meanwhile, no relationship was found by the findings between distributive justice and dimensions of moral distress.

According to the results of the study, there was a reverse significant relationship between moral distress and perceived organizational justice; therefore, the head nurses are expected to contribute to reduce moral distress and to increase perceived organizational justice in nurses.