ArticleJournal of public health (Oxford, England)2024
'Telling them "that's what it says in the guidance" didn't feel good enough': moral distress during the pandemic in UK public health professionals.
Article in Journal of public health (Oxford, England), 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- You Pay, You Play? Understanding Loot Box Engagement, Demographic Profiles and Associations with Gambling and Gaming Disorder in Three Polish Studies.Journal of gambling studies · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe study aimed to identify the causes of moral distress in public health professionals associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the potential ways of avoiding or mitigating the distress.
methodsThe survey was distributed to all members of the UK Faculty of Public Health between 14 December 2021 and 23 February 2022. Conventional qualitative content analysis was conducted to explore the situations in which moral distress arises, the moral judgments that led to distress and the proposed ways to address moral distress.
resultsA total of 629 responses were received from respondents broadly representative of the public health professional workforce. The main situations causing moral distress were national policy, guidance and law; public health advice; and workplace environments. Moral distress was precipitated by judgments about having caused injury, being unable to do good, dishonest communications and unjust prioritization. The need to improve guidance, communication and preparedness was recognized, though there was disagreement over how to achieve this. There were consistent calls for more subsidiarity, moral development and support and freedom to voice concerns.
conclusionsThe causes of moral distress in public health are distinct from other healthcare professions. Important proposals for addressing moral distress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have been voiced by public health professionals themselves.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.