Due to the increasing diversity and complexity of today’s society, identity conflicts represent an unpredictable challenge in workplace environments (Horton et al., 2014). Legal changes in medical regulations and advancements in medical technology have accentuated uncertainty in healthcare organisations (Karnik & Kanekar, 2016), exposing healthcare professionals to identity conflicts in the form of personal struggles and ethical dilemmas (Hurst et al., 2005). Indeed, doctors and nurses’ decision-making responsibility and clinical practice influence other people’s lives, especially in End-of-Life (EoL) circumstances (Kälvemark et al., 2004).

In these ethically-charged circumstances doctors and nurses’ professional identity values can interact with their other non-work identities values (Curlin et al., 2007), leading to identity conflict experience (Ashforth et al. 2008). Such identity conflicts can impact healthcare professionals’ psychological outcomes (Genuis & Lipp, 2013), decision making (Hurst et al., 2005), patient care (Bedford, 2012) and quality of the healthcare system (Sulmasy, 2008). Despite these serious consequences at individual, organisational and societal levels, how such ethical identity conflicts in healthcare professionals arise, are perceived and affect their behaviour remains unclear.