Ethical aspect of health care services: A field study to identify the approach of hospital personnel to ethical problems

In the studies involving the assessment of health care services, objective components such as the adequacy of the sources used for the services and the number of people utilizing these services are generally taken into account, whereas issues such as the behaviors patients encounter, patient rights and patient satisfaction are of secondary importance. However, ethical issues are more important to patients, in fact because increasing need for health care services, ineffective use and allocation of limited resources give rise to some ethical problems between health service providers and users. This survey aims to identify the approach of hospital employees to ethical problems and to suggest scientific solution for these problems. The survey was designed to obtain descriptive baseline data and the participants of this survey were the personnel of a hospital which is located in Ankara. The survey instrument was a ?face-to-face interview? questionnaire which was developed specifically to collect data on addressing objectives of this study. The questionnaire consists of questions designed to gain a broader insight into what specific ethical dilemmas are most frequently faced by the health-care personnel in their day-to-day practice. Of the 226 potential participants, 203 hospital employees responded the questionnaires. At the end of the survey, it is noted that a majority of hospital employees have never been assigned in an ethical committee and thus they need an ethical committee at their hospital; they do not feel competent in recognizing ethical problems and they think that ethical problems have an adverse effect on productive work. Furthermore, some considerable and meaningful relations have been identified between the participants? demographic characteristics and approaches to ethical problems as for rising awareness, prioritizing problems and creating solutions.