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Call for papers

It has been approximately 30 years since Andrew Jameton coined the term moral distress to describe the emotions people experience when they face constraints, or fail to act, on what they believe to be right. Nursing Ethics has published numerous articles, both empirical and theoretical, examining nurses’ experience of moral distress. Scholarship on moral distress, however, has not been without criticism. It has been criticized for being conceptually confused and lacking in empirical rigour. Concerns have also been expressed that the emphasis upon nurses’ inability to act perpetuates the belief that nurses are powerless. Given these apparent problems, it is important to examine the future directions of this scholarship. In this Special Issue of Nursing Ethics, we invite submissions that address the following types of questions: How do we bring conceptual clarity to moral distress? Would alternative concepts and theories be more fruitful? How should empirical studies be conducted to ensure rigour? What theories and concepts would best foster the expression of nurses’ moral agency?