19: Moral Distress

Suzi is joined by Vicky Thornton, who is the Head of Nursing at the University of Liverpool, to talk about moral distress and moral injury – two related concepts whereby a person feels unable to act in a way that aligns with their morals due to circumstances beyond their control – and the pressure or strain this can place on a person, as well as providing advice as to how to manage such feelings.

Some recommended reading for people who want to know more:

Moral Injury in Times of COVID-19 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42843-020-00011-4

Occupational Medicine editorial about covid and moral injury https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/70/5/317/5814939

BMC Medical Ethics article about covid and conflicting ethics advice https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-020-00491-5

Special issue on moral injury in the Journal of Traumatic Stress https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jts.22405

An article about covid and mental health impacts https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/inm.12726