Understanding of Professional Ethics Among a Sample of Medical Practitioners in Bangladesh
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3329/bmrcb.v46i3.52251Keywords:
Professional ethics, Medical practioners, Tertiary care hospitals, Hippocratic OathAbstract
Background: Ethical practice not only protects the rights of patients but is also a safeguard of medical practitioners. But, practicing medical ethics among the Bangladeshi health care professionals are not at a satisfactory level.
Objectives: The study was aimed to assess the level of understanding regarding medical ethics among the health care professionals.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted among registered 400 doctors of tertiary care hospitals and general practitioners in Dhaka City during June 2016 to January 2017. A non-probability sampling method was used for selecting the medical colleges, hospitals, institutions, medical university and general practitioners from the different areas of Dhaka city. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection assuring confidentiality and anonymity. Ethical approval was obtained from the National Research Ethics Committee (NREC) of Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC) and from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the American University of Sovereign Nations (AUSN). The collected data were analysed through SPSS software, windows, version 21 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) and R programming language.
Results: Of the 400 respondents, 68.0% were male. Mean (±SD) age of them was 30 (±6.5) years. About 93.0% respondents had only a MBBS degree and 65.0% were medical officers. About 38.0% respondents have below 5 years of clinical experience. Highest number of respondents got ethical information from book, second highest from lectures and then general text. About 32.0% respondents got ethical knowledge from one source. About 97.0% respondents agreed that medical ethics should be included in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical studies and 90.0% of them know only about theHippocratic Oath. Very few of them knew the Nuremberg Code (16.0%) and Helsinki Declaration (16.0%).Only 27.0% participants said that they never face any ethical problems in their clinical practice. About 75.0% reported that ethical practice is important in workplace. About 35.0% respondents have a very little knowledge and 46.0% have average knowledge on ethical law.
Conclusion: Findings of the study indicate that ethical knowledge of the respondents is not satisfactory although they realise that it is important in clinical practice and should include both undergraduate and graduate medical studies. Also need to develop practice in the workplace by law and legislations according to the guidelines of Bangladesh Medical & Dental Council (BMDC) and Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA).
Bangladesh Med Res Counc Bull 2020; 46(3): 168-175
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