Moral distress and work satisfaction: what is their relation in nursing work?

To verify relations between moral distress and work satisfaction in nursing work in the hospital context.

A cross-sectional study carried out in a university hospital with nurses by applying a sociodemographic questionnaire, the "Index of Work Satisfaction" and the Brazilian Version of the "Moral Distress Scale". Descriptive statistics and Spearman's correlation were used for the analysis.

141 nurses participated in the study. "Autonomy" was the component of greater work satisfaction, appearing as fragile in the greater intensity issues of moral distress. Autonomy was followed by "interaction" and "remuneration" as components of satisfaction, and "lack of competence in the team" and "insufficient working conditions" as having greater intensity and frequency of moral distress, respectively.

Comparing these two constructs denoted inverse relationships between them, especially while autonomy, a component of greater satisfaction, also appears as a trigger of moral distress when insufficiently exercised. Thus, it is considered necessary to strengthen nursing work environments for ethical and satisfactory performance.