Perceived adherence of health professionals towards professional ethics and factors associated in bale zone public hospitals, oromia regional state, southeast Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Currently, hospitals not only have to contend with the dynamics of regulation but most importantly they have to deal with the issue of professional ethics. Adherence to professional ethics by health care workers is one of the most critical aspects of quality health service delivery. Because it involves the way service providers interact with service users. Objective: To assess perceived adherence to professional ethics and associated factors among health care professionals in hospitals found in Bale Zone, Oromia region, South East - Ethiopia. Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was employed from April 1 st to April 30th 2019 in public hospitals found in Bale Zone. All medical doctors, nurses and midwives who involved in patient treatment and care in the different units of the hospitals during data collection and who have worked at least for six months prior to the data collection were included in this study. The edited and cleaned data entered into a computer using SPSS version 20.0 software and a summary descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression was performed. All statistical tests were declared at p-value less than 0.05. Results: From the total of 417 questionnaires distributed to different health care units in the hospitals, the analysis was done for 408 responses which give a response rate of 97.8%. Overall, 186(45.6%) respondents had good perceived adherence to ethical practice. Medical doctors ( AOR = 3.0; 95% CI: 1.41, 6.27) , good attitude towards professional ethics (AOR= 1.6; 95% CI: 1.01, 2.44), adequate information about professional ethics in the curriculum (AOR = 2.1; 95% CI: 1.14, 3.06), working experience more than six years (AOR = 2.5; 95% CI: 1.32, 4.75) and the presence of active ethics committee in hospitals (AOR = 2.0; 95% CI: 1.07, 2.62) were associated with good perceived adherence to professional ethical practice. Conclusions: The overall perceived adherence to professional ethics among Bale zone health professionals was poor. Types of profession, work experience, perceived adequacy of professional ethics in the curriculum, presence of active ethics committee in hospitals and attitude towards professional ethics had statistically significant association with perceived adherence to professional ethical practice. Improving staff‟s attitude towards professional ethics, considering the intensity of compassionate and respectful care training for different professionals differently and revising the contents of professional ethics in the respective curriculums is recommended.