Knowledge of bioethics in health care workers in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Objective: Identify the level of knowledge about Bioethics in the health care
workers in a third level hospital, so that the bioethical dilemmas turn to the
Hospital Committee of Bioethics.
Materials and Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional and prospective study
was conducted. By means of a probabilistic sampling by strata, the sample size
was calculated for a finite population n = 302 with a 95% confidence level, a visit
to the areas was made in shifts, a questionnaire obtained from 2 questionnaires
validated by Lynch et al., and Hernández et al. was applied. Within the ethical
considerations, a prior informed consent was applied to answer the questionnaire.
A descriptive statistical analysis was performed.
Results: The bioethical principles that the questionnaire reviews are autonomy
which was correctly identified in 17.2%, justice in 10.3%and charity in 14.6%.
With respect to the level of knowledge, a 2% high knowledge, 33% regular
knowledge, 33% knowledge low and 32% of null knowledge was found.
Conclusions: Ethical dilemmas are presented every day, identifying properly by
health care workers and channeling them to the Bioethics Hospital Committee
would be the ideal of every hospital that would allow us to properly contribute to
a better decision -making in patient care.
Keywords: Bioethics; health care workers; knowledge