Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

Moral distress is a phenomenon that can result in feelings of disappointment, guilt, depression, insecurity, fear, discouragement, and depression in nurses, and can affect their personality and professional performance. Burnout in nurses could cause various complications in their families, personal and social lives, and organizations. The aim of the present study was to determinate the correlation between moral distress and burnout in nurses.

This was a correlative descriptive study conducted on 224 nurses selected by stratified randomized sampling. Data were collected through a demographic characteristics questionnaire Corley’s Moral Distress Scale and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory. Data analysis was performed by SPSS 20 software and Spearman correlation tests.

In this study, mean of moral distress score, mean of personal burnout score, score of work-related burnout, and mean of client-related burnout were 1.31, 55.97, 54.35 and 51.28 respectively. The findings showed a positive significant correlation (P<0.001) between moral distress and all of its dimensions, and personal burnout, work-related burnout, and client-related burnout, although the correlation was low.

According to these findings, it is recommended to reduce the conditions and situations causing moral distress and burnout in order to promote job satisfaction and quality of nursing care.