Moral suffering in health professionals: portrait of the work environment in times of COVID-19

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze potential triggers of moral suffering experiences of health professionals, reported in the media, during the COVID-19 pandemic and to propose a theoretical construct of analysis. Methods: Study with qualitative approach whose data source were 50 reports published online, collected passively and actively, submitted to Content Analysis with the help of ATLAS.ti software. Results: The potential moral problems that trigger moral suffering are related to the threat to moral integrity, infrastructure/logistics and teamwork problems, and emotional aspects, revealing their articulation with damage to the foundations of a healthy work environment, which generated the proposal of a construct. Final considerations: The articulation between the experiences of moral suffering and the commitment of the fundamentals of a healthy work environment has brought important contributions to the adoption of strategies to protect and stimulate moral deliberation by professionals in favor of practice and society.