When nurses' vulnerability challenges their moral integrity: A discursive paper

Abstract

Background: Both vulnerability and integrity represent action-guiding concepts in nursing practice. However, they are primarily discussed regarding patients-not nurses-and considered independently from rather than in relation to each other.

Aim: The aim of this paper is to characterize the moral dimension of nurses' vulnerability and integrity, specify the concepts' relationship in nurses' clinical practice and, ultimately, allow a more fine-grained understanding.

Design: This discursive paper demonstrates how vulnerability and integrity relate to each other in nursing practice and carves out which types of vulnerability pose a threat to nurses' moral integrity. The concept of vulnerability developed by Mackenzie et al. (2014) is applied to the situation of nurses and expanded to include the concept of moral integrity according to Hardingham (2004). Four scenarios are used to demonstrate where and how nurses' vulnerabilities become particularly apparent in clinical practice. This leads to a cross-case discussion, in which the vulnerabilities identified are examined against the background of moral integrity and the relationship between the two concepts is determined in more detail.

Results and conclusion: Vulnerability and integrity do not only form a conceptual pair but also represent complementary moral concepts. Their joint consideration has both a theoretical and practical added value. It is shown that only specific forms of vulnerability pose a threat to moral integrity and the vulnerability-integrity relationship is mediated via moral distress.

Implications for the profession and/or patient care: The manuscript provides guidance on how the concrete threat(s) to integrity can be buffered and moral resilience can be promoted. Different types of threats also weigh differently and require specific approaches to assess and handle them at the micro-, meso- and macro-level of the healthcare system.

Keywords: decision-making; ethics; narrative; nurse-patient interaction; nurse-patient relationship; philosophy; self-care.