Moral distress within neonatal and paediatric intensive care units: A systematic review

Abstract

Objective To review the literature on moral distress experienced by nursing and medical professionals within neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and paediatric intensive care units (PICUs). Design Pubmed, EBSCO (Academic Search Complete, CINAHL and Medline) and Scopus were searched using the terms neonat∗, infant∗, pediatric∗, prematur∗ or preterm AND (moral distress OR moral responsibility OR moral dilemma OR conscience OR ethical confrontation) AND intensive care. Results 13 studies on moral distress published between January 1985 and March 2015 met our inclusion criteria. Fewer than half of those studies (6) were multidisciplinary, with a predominance of nursing staff responses across a..