KNOWLEDGE, CONFIDENCE, AND ATTITUDES REGARDING MEDICAL-ETHICS - HOW DO FACULTY AND HOUSESTAFF COMPARE

Background. It has been suggested that faculty members' inadequate kno wledge of and unfavorable attitudes toward ethics may present barriers to effective education in ethics for house officers. Method. To test this hypothesis, the authors administered a questionnaire assessing th e knowledge, confidence, and attitudes regarding ethics of the 13 hous e officers and 13 full-time faculty members in the Department of Medic ine at the Georgetown University Medical Center in 1992-93. Statistica l analysis of the responses was performed using chi-square, two-tailed I-tests, and linear regression. Results. Fifty-five house officers (7 5%) and 57 faculty (78%) responded. The knowledge scores were similarl y low for both groups (53% correct for the faculty and 50% for the hou se officers). However, the faculty were significantly more confident t han the house officers regarding ability to address ethical issues (me an ratings of 3.9 vs 3.4 on a scale from 1, very low to 5, very high; P = .0001). Seventy-five percent of the faculty and 65% of the house o fficers believed that ethics training should be mandatory during resid ency. Conclusion. The attitudes of the faculty per se do not appear to represent a barrier to teaching ethics. However, the gap between the faculty members' confidence and knowledge could interfere with their a bilities to model and teach ethics to house officers.