ICU staff moral distress may not be linked to adverse events

Researchers in Vancouver, B.C., measured staff moral distress in 13 intensive care units (ICUs) and looked for correlations with five selected adverse events and medication errors occurring during a two-year period. Writing in the Journal of Critical Care, the researchers concluded, “Moral distress in ICU personnel is generally not associated with medication errors or adverse events, or other adverse events, but it may be associated with both hyper-vigilance and distraction.” However, when looking specifically at nurses, they found a higher moral distress associated “with more interceptions of near misses per administration error.”