Ageism and moral distress in nurses caring for older patients

ABSTRACT

This study explored the influence of healthcare ageism on nurses’ moral distress. Episodic interviews were conducted on 25 Romanian nurses in 2020. Thematic analysis revealed that all moral distress sources reported reflected macro-, meso- and micro-level ageism, benevolent and hostile, self- or other-directed, including stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination of older patients. The COVID-19 pandemic-related ageist measures increased healthcare ageism and transformed nurses’ representations of older patients accordingly. Nurses felt moral conflict both when passively witnessing ageist acts and when perpetrating them to adhere to group norms, highlighting the need to combat ageism for both patients’ and nurses’ well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral distress
• ageism
• nurses
• older patients
• nursing ethics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number Unitatea Executiva pentru Finantarea Invatamantului Superior, a Cercetarii, Dezvoltarii si Inovarii PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019-0982;>, within PNCDI III.