Sustaining hope as a moral competency in the context of aggressive care

Background:Nurses who provide aggressive care often experience the ethical challenge of needing to preserve the hope of seriously ill patients and their families without providing false hope.Research objectives:The purpose of this inquiry was to explore nurses’ moral competence related to fostering hope in patients and their families within the context of aggressive technological care. A secondary purpose was to understand how this competence is shaped by the social–moral space of nurses’ work in order to capture how competencies may reflect an adaptation to a less than ideal work environment.Research design:A critical qualitative approach was used.Participants:Fifteen graduate nursing students from various practice areas participated.Ethical considerations:After receiving ethics approval from the university, signed informed consent was obtained from participants before they were interviewed.Findings:One overarching theme ‘Mediating the tension between providing false hope and destroying hope within biome...