Moral distress, professional value, and vocational choice among senior nursing students: A cross-sectional study

During clinical placement, nursing students may experience unease and moral distress, which negatively impacts their professional values and vocational choices. However, no instrument exists to measure moral distress in nursing students. Thus, this study constructs measurement items for moral distress and explores the factors that influence the vocational choices of nursing students. The participants were recruited from three universities in South Korea Between September and October 2021. This study was adopted with a convenience sample of 270 Korean fourth-year nursing students who completed their clinical practice at tertiary general hospitals in three provinces in the North, Middle, and South areas of South Korea. Data were collected through a self-administered structured questionnaire. The study developed the items and subscales of the Moral Distress Scale using multistep methods following the recommendations of the Consensus-Based Standards for the Selection of Health Status Measurement Instrument. The study constructed 22 items of the three factors of Moral Distress Scale. The three factors of the Moral Distress Scale were "moral distress by low quality of care," "moral distress by a heavy workload and an insufficient workforce," and "unfair and distrust." The factors influencing the vocational choice of the nursing students were high professional values, intention not to choose nursing as a future career, lacking vision for choosing nursing, democratic family climate, and having at least one parent who was a medical professional. Moral distress in undergraduate nursing students may not influence their intention to choose the nursing profession. Fostering the professionalism and professional values of nursing students through university education curricula may help maintain their professional identity.