Thoughtful Tolerance: A Strategy for Managing Moral Dilemmas among the Nurses in Iran

Aim: Nurses face plenty of challenges as a result of their workplace interactions pertaining in part to morality and in part to their individual rights. Nevertheless, having effective professional ethics, even when the nurse has faced a challenge, is part of their competency as a nurse.

This study was carried out in order to examine how moral dilemmas and challenges related to individual rights are faced and managed by nurses in Iran.

Research Design and Methodology: This is a qualitative content analysis study. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and field notes. The resulting data were analyzed by Graneheim’s method of conventional content analysis.

The study was carried out in the years 2014 and 2015 in Iran. The total population was the clinical nurses from Iran’s universities of medical sciences. Purposive convenient sampling was used to select 12 nurses.

Results: Examining the data led to the emergence of the main theme of thoughtful tolerance. This main theme was categorized into three subthemes namely, mutual forgiveness, forbearance, and chivalry.

Conclusions: Iranian nurses choose to manage their moral dilemmas they face in relation to their rights by taking up thoughtful tolerance based on their individual, religious, and cultural values in the cultural construct, and in this way they make sure that their performance is most professional. They believe that not only their soul softens up through forbearance and forgiving themselves and others, but it also helps improve the quality of care. Therefore, thoughtful tolerance may lead to an enhancement of the nurses’ professional competency.