Moralisk stress : en explorativ undersökning om socialsekreterares upplevelser av när de är tvungna att gå emot de egna värderingarna inom det sociala arbetet

Sammanfattning: The purpose of our study is to examine whether social welfare secretaries experience obstacles in work to do their tasks in a way that they, from their own values, thinks is right. And if so, what are the reactions and what strategies do they use to manage this. The study is based on a qualitative method. The data consist of interviews, with five social welfare secretaries, which all work in southern Sweden. The social welfare secretaries both work at a children- and youth department and at a social allowance department. The interview guide was constructed in relation to the essays main purpose, which consists of three main themes (obstacles, reactions and strategies). Previous researches that are made are based on nurses and their employment that often focusing on ethical decisions that results in moral stress. We have found one study that is focused on moral stress among social welfare secretaries. The result of our study showed that the social welfare secretaries we interviewed experienced obstacles in work to do their tasks in a way that they, from their own values, thought were right. The obstacles that the social worker secretaries experienced were the Law, the lack of time and the economy. The result of our study also showed that the social welfare secretaries reacted in different ways when they experienced the obstacles. The social worker secretaries in our study reacted with anxiety, negative stress- symptom and anger/frustration. The social welfare secretaries in the study also told us about what strategies they used to handle situations when they experienced obstacles in work to do their tasks in a way that they, from their own values thought were right. Some of these strategies the social welfare secretaries used were communication, displacement to the Law, loyalty and experience (which we construed as a strategy in a longer time of view).