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Distressed Work: Chronic Imperatives and Distress in Covid-19 Critical Care.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Navuluri, N; Solomon, HS; Hargett, CW; Kussin, PS
Published in: Hastings Cent Rep
January 2023

This ethnographic study introduces the term "distressed work" to describe the emergence of chronic frictions between moral imperatives for health care workers to keep working and the dramatic increase in distress during the Covid-19 pandemic. Interviews and observant participation conducted in a hospital intensive care unit during the Covid-19 pandemic reveal how health care workers connected job duties with extraordinary emotional, physical, and moral burdens. We explore tensions between perceived obligations of health care professionals and the structural contexts of work. Key findings cluster around the moral imperatives of health care work and the distress that work engendered as work spaces, senses of vocation, patient and family interactions, and end-of-life care shifted. While the danger of working beyond limits has long been an ordinary feature of health care work, it has now become a chronic crisis. Assessing this problem in terms of distressed work and its structural contexts can better address effective, worker-informed responses to current health care labor dilemmas.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

Hastings Cent Rep

DOI

EISSN

1552-146X

Publication Date

January 2023

Volume

53

Issue

1

Start / End Page

33 / 45

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Stress, Psychological
  • Pandemics
  • Morals
  • Humans
  • Emotions
  • Critical Care
  • COVID-19
  • Applied Ethics
  • 5001 Applied ethics
  • 2203 Philosophy
 

Citation

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Navuluri, N., Solomon, H. S., Hargett, C. W., & Kussin, P. S. (2023). Distressed Work: Chronic Imperatives and Distress in Covid-19 Critical Care. Hastings Cent Rep, 53(1), 33–45. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1458
Navuluri, Neelima, Harris S. Solomon, Charles W. Hargett, and Peter S. Kussin. “Distressed Work: Chronic Imperatives and Distress in Covid-19 Critical Care.Hastings Cent Rep 53, no. 1 (January 2023): 33–45. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1458.
Navuluri N, Solomon HS, Hargett CW, Kussin PS. Distressed Work: Chronic Imperatives and Distress in Covid-19 Critical Care. Hastings Cent Rep. 2023 Jan;53(1):33–45.
Navuluri, Neelima, et al. “Distressed Work: Chronic Imperatives and Distress in Covid-19 Critical Care.Hastings Cent Rep, vol. 53, no. 1, Jan. 2023, pp. 33–45. Pubmed, doi:10.1002/hast.1458.
Navuluri N, Solomon HS, Hargett CW, Kussin PS. Distressed Work: Chronic Imperatives and Distress in Covid-19 Critical Care. Hastings Cent Rep. 2023 Jan;53(1):33–45.
Journal cover image

Published In

Hastings Cent Rep

DOI

EISSN

1552-146X

Publication Date

January 2023

Volume

53

Issue

1

Start / End Page

33 / 45

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Stress, Psychological
  • Pandemics
  • Morals
  • Humans
  • Emotions
  • Critical Care
  • COVID-19
  • Applied Ethics
  • 5001 Applied ethics
  • 2203 Philosophy