Moral distress assessment instruments to nursing workers: integrative review

Abstract

Aim: to describe the instruments used to evaluate nursing moral distress identified in the national and international literature. Method: Integrative review, with bibliographic search with keywords such as: moral distress, ethics, nursing, nursing ethics and moral. The search was performed in the LILACS, CINAHL and SCOPUS databases in January 2016. Thirty articles were selected for analysis and classified according to evidence levels. Results: five different instruments were identified for evaluating moral distress. The most used in national and international literature was the Moral Distress Scale in its both original and translated or adapted versions. Conclusion: the instruments for evaluating moral distress are constituted by identifying tools of this phenomenon in the different nursing work environments. Moral distress identification may contribute to the search strategies in order to minimize the problem of moral distress in these contexts. Any instrument built in Brazil was not found