Physicians’ attitudes toward clinical ethics consultation: a research study from Turkey

Aim: To identify the reasons why physicians request or do not request ethics consultation and to determine the priority of ethical issues for those demanding consultation.Materials and methods: This survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire, and 270 clinicians (surgeons and internists) from 3 different medical school hospitals were included. The questionnaire consisted of Likert- type statements related to the reasons for requesting or not requesting ethics consultation and a ranking list of ethical dilemmas according to the physicians’ priorities.Results: Of all clinicians, 40.4% were employed in surgical departments and 59.6% in internal medicine departments. Most of the physicians (90%) stated that they wanted to demand ethics consultations. The first reason surgeons gave for demanding consultation was a desire to receive help with judicial problems; among internists, the most common reason for demanding a consultation was to achieve a clear conscience (P 0.05). “Withdrawal of life-support-system decision” was determined to be the main subject for which clinicians requested ethics consultations.Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that clinicians require ethics consultations; nevertheless, it is a fact that there is a limited number of requests and inadequate experience with applying. This situation may be caused by the lack of clinical ethics support services that deal with ethics consultation in Turkey.