Moral Distress and Job Satisfaction among Nurses Working in Tertiary Care Hospitals, Karachi, Pakistan
Mahboob Alia, Sarfraz Masihb, Waqas Ahmed Farooquic, Rukhsana Zulfiqard, Rasheed Ahmed Khana, Aziz ur Rehman Yousafzaie, Amir Rahmanf, Afsha Bibig, Javed Alia
- aMale College of Nursing, Sindh Government Hospital, Liaquatabad, Karachi, Pakistan
- bLahore School of Nursing, The University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan
- cSchool of Public Health, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan
- dOxford College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
- eQatar College of Nursing, Karachi, Pakistan
- fDepartment of Nursing, CECOS University of Information Technology and Emerging Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan
- gFaculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Ziauddin University, Karachi, Pakistan
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Abstract
Moral distress is a painful feeling and a mental disturbance that occurs when a morally correct course of action is known but cannot be performed. Objective: To determine the moral distress and job satisfaction level, their correlation and their association with demographics among nurses working in public sector tertiary care hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: This study was conducted in public sector tertiary care hospitals in Karachi through an analytical cross-sectional study design among 300 nurses. Results: This study shows that 52.7% of the participants had low, 38% have moderate, while 9.3% have high/very high levels of moral distress. Most of the nurses, 94%, were satisfied with their job. Moral distress was negatively correlated with job satisfaction (r=-0.180, p=0.002). Moreover, moral distress was associated with age (p=0.03) and ward (p= <0.001). In contrast, job satisfaction was associated only with gender (p=0.008). Conclusions: The study findings illustrated that most nurses had low moral distress and were satisfied. Moral distress was negatively correlated with job satisfaction.