Nurses’ experiences of the factors leading to commit unconscionable acts: A phenomenological study

Background and objective: Stress of conscience experienced when the nurses dissatisfied by their caring. Nurses dissatisfying may be due to duties that imposed by themselves, and others (patients, managers and institute) or when nurses didn’t have enough time for patients and must do something against their consciences. Thus, the current study was carried out to evaluate the nurses’ experience of the factors affecting actions against nursing conscience. Materials and methods: The study was a qualitative approach, performed with phenomenological method. The participants were selected among individuals with the background of nursing, who were interested to participate. After signing informed consents, in scheduled times the participants attended unstructured interviews in the places they were willing. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed. Data analysis was performed according to Colaizzi’s method. The accuracy of the data was verified by checking its creditability, confirmability, reliability, and transferability. Findings: On the whole, nine nurses working in educational hospitals of Kermanshah-Iran, included three men and six women, attended in-depth interviews. Of the participants, eight had B.Sc. degree and one had M. Sc. By continuous analysis of the data as well as analysis of the handwritings related to the interviews on the experience and viewpoints of nurses about actions against their conscience, The four themes emerged, that included systemic factors (management and equipment), factors related to situations (exhaustion, work overload and time pressure), individual factors (individuals traits and didn’t have enough experience) and human factors (inappropriate ratio of nurses to patients). Discussion and conclusion: The nurses’ experience of factors affecting nursing conscience in the present study was consistent with that of other studies. However, the emphasis of the participants on aspects of conscience was different from other studies. It is suggested that besides providing some mechanisms to reinforce nursing conscience and removing the factors that may impair its stability, some more specialized studies be carried out in specialized wards or specialized hospitals.