Moral distress in medical residents from Chilean universities

Abstract Moral distress, defined as the suffering a person experiences when forced to actions or omissions that contradict their values, has been described in all medical professions and related training, associated with consequences such as depersonalization in care, low motivation at work, vocational questioning, and in connection with burnout. In Chile, moral distress has been scarcely researched, and even less in medical students. This is an observational, descriptive and mixed research with medical residents from four universities in Chile using an electronically distributed questionnaire to study its frequency and main triggering factors. Participants included 56 students. The results show transversal occurrence of moral distress in students from the researched universities. The difficulty in obtaining informed consent from patients is noted as the main moral distress source. The results provide useful knowledge for designing educational programs that address moral distress and its main associated sources.