For a nurse, it is essential to follow the recent advances in the nursing field. It is relevant for the commonplace evidence-based practice and other work aspects. Being aware of the new techniques and methods that improve a patient’s well-being and increase a nurse’s efficiency should be the main priority. This essay will analyze and summarize two articles on nursing, showing the information that addresses those goals.
The article is devoted to errors committed by nurses and ethical leadership as a means to prevent them. It is entitled “Ethical leadership, nursing error and error reporting from the nurses’ perspective,” and it explores such concepts within the setting of Iran (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). The study’s aim was to “determine the level of ethical leadership and its impact on nursing errors and error reporting” (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). The study type was cross-sectional descriptive, and it involved nursing in charge of medical-surgical wards of three Iranian hospitals (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). The necessary data was collected using four questionnaires: the first one targeted general information (age, gender, years of experience, etc.), and the second one measured the level of ethical leadership (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). The third survey asked for nursing errors while the fourth one inquired about nursing error reporting (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). The data analysis was then conducted using descriptive statistics, and the findings were provided (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). As a result, the link between ethical leadership and nursing errors was established.
Overall, the study is consistent with other research attempts on the topic, with most values mirroring those confirmed previously. It means that the higher the level of ethical leadership, the lower the error-making rate (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). On the other hand, error reporting should increase, although other also factors affect it (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). The study had certain limitations, as it used self-reporting instruments, but those were carefully developed to collect as much information as possible (Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Mirjalili, 2019). Ultimately, the article presents the relevant issue of nursing leadership and errors, which directly impact patients’ quality of life, so its results are worth considering.
The second article concerns the topic of moral distress (MD), which appears to be extremely relevant for nursing. Its title is “What is ‘moral distress’ in nursing? A feminist empirical bioethics study,” and it addresses the issue on several levels, conceptual and empirical, within the setting of the United Kingdom (Morley et al., 2019). The study’s purpose was to further develop the concept of MD in nursing (Morley et al., 2019). The research applied feminist interpretive phenomenology to collect and evaluate the data through recorded interviews, during which the participants shared their experience and understanding of MD (Morley et al., 2019). Afterward, the researchers used Van Manen’s six text analysis steps to interpret the obtained information (Morley et al., 2019). It provided individual definitions of MD and similar phenomena, as well as emotional states associated with them.
While most phenomena are well-defined and established, the recently discovered ones need more time and research, such as moral distress, which understanding continues to be further shaped by new nursing experiences. Morley et al. (2019) described the causes of MD, or moral events, including moral constraints, moral tension, moral dilemma, and others. Those phenomena have slight differences in their manifestation, although they share similar emotions (Morley et al., 2019). The study had some limitations regarding its participants, as the sample size was small and, for the most part, ethnically homogeneous (Morley et al., 2019). Thus, the concept of MD was further expanded to include its precursors and their detailed description. Overall, the article addresses the developing definition of moral distress relevant for nursing and describes the events leading to it but does not offer any solutions for combating it.
References
Barkhordari-Sharifabad, M., & Mirjalili, N.-S. (2019). Ethical leadership, nursing error and error reporting from the nurses’ perspective. Nursing Ethics, 27(2), 609-620. Web.
Morley, G., Bradbury-Jones, C., & Ives, J. (2020). What is ‘moral distress’ in nursing? A feminist empirical bioethics study. Nursing Ethics, 27(5), 1297–1314. Web.