Background: Mismatch between the perception of one's moral duty and one's real social contribution may trigger moral distress, especially when no specific resistance strategies are used to counteract morally distressing situations. Considering a philosophical-ethical conception, individuals need to first reflect upon themselves to later turn to the world and confront their current situation in order to change it.
Objectives: To understand moral distress experienced by nursing professors teaching in higher education institutions and the use of parrhesia as a coping strategy.
Method: This qualitative exploratory-descriptive study addressed 33 nursing professors working in Brazilian federal public universities using an open-ended question form. Data were collected between June and December 2018 and analyzed using discursive textual analysis.
Ethical considerations: The Institutional Review Board at the Federal University of Rio Grande approved this study.
Findings: Three categories emerged: performance of nursing professors and potentially distressing situations, the experience of moral distress, and parrhesia as a strategy to deal with moral distress. Nursing professors face situations that cause moral distress in the context of higher education, however, those who adopt parrhesia as a coping strategy find it easier to express their beliefs from the perspective of moral duty, even in the face of conflicts.
Conclusion: When the nursing professors in this study acknowledge elements in the power structure that hinder their actions, they express parrhesia, as an essential virtue in an attempt to modify unsymmetrical power relations that can trigger moral distress.
Keywords: Ethics; faculty nursing; moral distress; nurse education; nursing.