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Invisibility of the self: Reaching for the telos of nursing within a context of moral distress
Author(s) -
Caram Carolina S,
Peter Elizabeth,
Brito Maria JM
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
nursing inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.66
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1440-1800
pISSN - 1320-7881
DOI - 10.1111/nin.12269
Subject(s) - telos , invisibility , thematic analysis , nursing ethics , nursing , context (archaeology) , virtue ethics , qualitative research , distress , psychology , sociology , virtue , social psychology , medicine , epistemology , psychotherapist , psychiatry , social science , philosophy , optics , biology , paleontology , physics
Many studies have examined clinical and institutional moral problems in the practice of nurses that have led to the experience of moral distress. The causes and implications of moral distress in nurses, however, have not been understood in terms of their implications from the perspective of virtue ethics. This paper analyzes how nurses reach for the telos of their practice, within a context of moral distress. A qualitative case study was carried out in a private hospital in Brazil. Observation and semi‐semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 nurse participants. With the aid of ATLAS.ti software, the data were analyzed by using thematic content analysis using virtue ethics to theorize the findings. These nurses experienced a loss of their nursing identity as they encountered an ambiguous telos and the domination of institutional values. In their reach for the telos of their practice, nurses found an environment permeated by ethical challenges, which not only created moral distress but also created professional invisibility, a phenomenon referred to as ‘invisibility of the self’.