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Background: While conscientious objection is a well-known phenomenon in normative and bioethical literature, there is a lack of evidence to support an understanding of what it is like for nurses to make a conscientious objection in clinical practice including the meaning this holds for them and the nursing profession. Research question: The question guiding this research was: what is the lived experience of conscientious objection for Registered Nurses in Ontario? Research design: Interpretive phenomenological methodology was used to gain an in-depth understanding of what it means to be a nurse making a conscientious objection. Purposive sampling with in-depth interview methods was used to collect and then analyze data through an iterative process. Participants and research context: Eight nurse participants were interviewed from across practice settings in Ontario, Canada. Each participant was interviewed twice over 9 months. Ethical considerations: This study was conducted in accordance with Health Science Research Ethics Board approval and all participants gave consent. Findings: Six themes emerged from data analysis: encountering the problem, knowing oneself, taking a stand, alone and uncertain, caring for others, and perceptions of support. Discussion: This study offers an initial understanding of what it is like to be a nurse making a conscientious objection in clinical practice. Implications for nursing practice, education, policy, and further research are discussed. Conclusion: Addressing ethical issues in nursing practice is complex. The need for education across nursing, healthcare disciplines and socio-political sectors is essential to respond to nurses' ethical concerns giving rise to objections. Conscience emerged as an informant to nurses' conscientious objections. The need for morally inclusive environments and addressing challenging ethical questions as well as the concept of conscience are relevant to advancing nursing ethics and ethical nursing practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lack of compassion is claimed to result in poor and sometimes harmful nursing care. Developing strategies to encourage compassionate caring behaviours are important because there is evidence to suggest a connection between having a moral orientation such as compassion and resulting caring behaviour in practice. Objective: This study aimed to articulate a clearer understanding of compassionate caring via nurse educators' selection and use of published texts and film. Methodology: This study employed discourse analysis. Participants and research context: A total of 41 nurse educators working in universities in the United Kingdom (n = 3), Ireland (n = 1) and Canada (n = 1) completed questionnaires on the narratives that shaped their understanding of care and compassion. Findings: The desire to understand others and how to care compassionately characterised educators' choices. Most narratives were examples of kindness and compassion. A total of 17 emphasised the importance of connecting with others as a central component of compassionate caring, 10 identified the burden of caring, 24 identified themes of abandonment and of failure to see the suffering person and 15 narratives showed a discourse of only showing compassion to those 'deserving' often understood as the suffering person doing enough to help themselves. Discussion: These findings are mostly consistent with work in moral philosophy emphasising the particular or context and perception or vision as well as the necessity of emotions. The narratives themselves are used by nurse educators to help explicate examples of caring and compassion (or its lack). Conclusion: To feel cared about people need to feel 'visible' as though they matter. Nurses need to be alert to problems that may arise if their 'moral vision' is influenced by ideas of desert and how much the patient is doing to help himself or herself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]