Identification of moral sensivity of emergency health teams

The purpose of this study is to identify ethical awareness and associated factors in emergency health teams. Target population of the study which is descriptive in nature is the emergency services of university and state hospitals located in Adana and health teams working in ambulance stations in Adana Local Health Authority. The data were collected through ?Personal Identification Form? and ?Moral Sensivity Questionnaire (MSQ)? developed by Lutzen. Reliability and validity of MSQ was enhanced by Hale Tosun. The 30-item Likert-type instrument has 6 subdimensions (Autonomy, Benefit, Totalitarian Approach, Encounter, Practice, and Orientation). Results show that 69% of the emergency health personnel are female (n=276), 45% (n=182) are married, 55% (n=220) are single, 64% (n=259) do not have children, 82% (n=331) preferred this occupation themselves, 89% (n=358) love their job, 80 % (n=321) have received ethics education, 87% (n=348) do not follow any publications regarding ethics, and 71% (n=287) do not have ethical committee in their institution. MSQ mean scores of emergency health teams were found 83±16,3, which indicates high moral sensivity. Moral sensivity mean scores of those over 40 were found to be significantly much higher than the mean scores of other groups. Encounter subdimension also demonstrated statistically significant differences; ethical awareness of those who are married and who have children were found significantly higher than those who are single and who do not have children. Key Words: Emergency, Emergency Health Team, Emergency Service, Ethical Awareness