Background: Nurses’ often face ethical challenges on a day-to-day basis, and especially in end-of-life care. End-of-life care is often complex and includes many different nursing needs.80 percent of 90 000 that died in Sweden over the year needed palliative care.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses’ experience of ethical challenges in end-of-life care.

Method: A qualitative literature-based study where ten articles have been analyzed with the support of Friberg’s five steps analysis model.

Results: Three main themes and six subthemes was identified. The first theme describes how nurses’ must face being a fellow human being and simultaneously master their professional role as a nurse in end-of-life care. The second theme describes the needs and wishes of the relatives, and how it creates challenges for the nurses to balance between meeting their need and at the same time cherish the patients’ dignity. Ultimately, third theme showed how the lack of com-mon values, assessment foundation, skill development and support from other teammates cre-ates uncertainty amongst nurses when providing care to patients and support to their relatives.

Conclusion: Several of the ethical dilemmas faced by nurses where due to lack of organiza-tional structures. Therefore, there is a need for work improvement, further knowledge about end-of-life care and how they should face these ethical challenges in their professional roles.