Figure 1.

Role of moral orientation in critical care physicians’ moral distress and its consequences. Sociocultural, legal, and clinical contexts dynamically affected individual physicians’ moral orientation, which acted as a key determinant of perceived moral distress and moral satisfaction in the clinical environment. Variable individual moral orientations within care teams contribute to negative interactions between physicians and their colleagues. Imbalances in the levels of moral distress and moral satisfaction, combined to the nature of the interactions with their colleagues determined, in part, the consequences of dealing with morally challenging for ICU physicians.