Perceptions of conscience in relation to stress of conscience

• Every day situations arising in health care contain ethical issues influencing care providers' conscience. How and to what extent conscience is influenced may differ according to how conscience is perceived. This study aimed to explore the relationship between perceptions of conscience and stress of conscience among care providers working in municipal housing for elderly people. A total of 166 care providers were approached, of which 146 (50 registered nurses and 96 nurses' aides/enrolled nurses) completed a questionnaire containing the Perceptions of Conscience Questionnaire and the Stress of Conscience Questionnaire. A multivariate canonical correlation analysis was conducted. The first two functions emerging from the analysis themselves explained a noteworthy amount of the shared variance (25.6% and 17.8%). These two dimensions of the relationship were interpreted either as having to deaden one's conscience relating to external demands in order to be able to collaborate with coworkers, or as having to deaden one's conscience relating to internal demands in order to uphold one's identity as a `good' health care professional.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Medicinsk etik (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Medical Ethics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Adaptation

Psychological

Adult

Attitude of Health Personnel

Burnout

Professional/etiology/*psychology

Conflict (Psychology)

Conscience

Female

Guilt

Health Knowledge; Attitudes; Practice

Housing for the Elderly

Humans

Male

Middle Aged

Multivariate Analysis

Nurse's Role

Nurses' Aides/ethics/*psychology

Nursing Homes

Nursing Methodology Research

Nursing Staff/ethics/*psychology

Nursing; Practical/ethics

Questionnaires

Self Concept

Sweden

Nursing

Caring sciences

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)