From Burden to Blessing: Maternal Guilt as a Spiritual Compass for Resilience Among Muslim Intensive Care Unit Nurses in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25217/002026929800Keywords:
Islamic psychology, interpretative phenomenological analysis, maternal guilt, Muslim women, ICU nursesAbstract
Maternal guilt is common among working mothers in caregiving professions, and Muslim Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurses in Indonesia have been shown to report elevated levels; however, existing research has treated religiosity primarily as a buffer that mitigates such distress rather than examining how guilt itself may be reinterpreted as a spiritually meaningful process. This gap is most consequential in ICU nursing, where the compression of professional moral distress and maternal obligation is most acute, yet this population has received little empirical attention within Islamic psychology. This study examined how Muslim ICU nurses in Indonesia interpret and transform maternal guilt through an Islamic spiritual lens. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was employed, with two in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with each of eight Muslim ICU nurse-mothers recruited through purposive sampling from three regional public hospitals in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan. Interviews were conducted in Bahasa Indonesia interwoven with Bahasa Banjar and analysed following Smith and colleagues' six-step Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) procedure. Three group experiential themes emerged: guilt was experienced as a divine moral compass anchored in the body and read through daily exposure to patient mortality; it was transformed through Islamic vocabulary (sabr, ikhlas, tawakkul, amanah) and embodied ritual practices (wudu, niyyah) from perfectionist standards to the standard of cukup (enough); and it ultimately reinforced a unified identity in which mothering and nursing were held together as dual sacred trusts. These findings contribute to culturally grounded models of maternal well-being in Muslim-majority caregiving contexts and inform faith-integrated approaches to Islamic guidance and counselling for women in high-demand healthcare professions.
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