NURSE MANAGERS' MORAL SUFFERING IN A UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

[...]it was sought to contribute to the health area, in the aspects of morally sensing the professionals for the activities they perform and regarding moral distress. Despite the advances, it appears that nurse managers have a daily routine marked by ethical problems that impact the search to adapt the workforce to the new requirements of the production system.1,2 Managerial work is of paramount importance and involves the challenges of daily practice in hospital services because of ethical, technical, organizational problems, among others. [...]the emergence of suffering is revealed when nurses are confronted with problems that violate their moral values, generating obstacles to perform the action defined as ethically appropriate, which may cause painful feelings and/ or psychological imbalances.3 In critical cases, it can lead them to abandon the profession.4 The phenomenon has been identified as one of the main problems in the nursing profession. The specificities of the manager's work involve administrative activities, materials, and human resources management, conflict management, being a fertile field for the development of investigative actions, among them the MD theme.8 Bearing the aforementioned in mind, this study meant to describe both generating situations and elements involved in the moral distress process according to nurse managers of a public hospital from the Southern region of Brazil.