Knowledge, perceptions and practices towards medical ethics among physician residents of University of Alexandria hospitals, Egypt

This cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the knowledge, perceptions and practices towards medical ethics of physician residents at university hospitals in Alexandria, Egypt. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used for knowledge and perceptions and a checklist for observations of doctor– patient interactions in the outpatient setting. Only 18.0% of the 128 participating residents had obtained their knowledge from their medical education and 29.9% were dissatisfied with the roles played by the ethics committee. Most of the residents had satisfactory knowledge and 60.2% had satisfactory perceptions regarding ethical issues. The lowest perception score was in the domain of disclosing medical errors. Only 48.0% of the residents were compliant with the principles of medical ethics in practice and 52.0% of patients were dissatisfied with their treating physicians. The study identified areas of unsatisfactory knowledge and practices towards ethical issues so as to devise means to sensitize residents to these issues and train them appropriately.