Baseline Survey of knowledge, attitude and practice of healthcare ethics, in healthcare practitioners of a tertiary healthcare institution in Ghana, a Sub-Saharan Country

Abstract

Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) on healthcare professional's (HCP) ethical practice have been studied extensively in countries with developed economies. On the other hand studies in lower and middle-income countries (LMIC), especially in Sub-Saharan (SSA) countries are relatively sparse. The survey outlined in this article which was conducted in an SSA country tertiary care health facility in Ghana, was undertaken to explore the primary ethical knowledge and intuition, in a cohort of SSA HCP. The aim was to determine their baseline ethical knowledge and sensitivity, deficits if any, in basic ethical concepts, and determine gaps in ethical knowledge. The information obtained from the study was to inform the possible future direction of ethics education, which currently has a relatively low uptake in SSA settings. The results indicated the respondents thought of ethical issues in the course of their work. However, if one is to go by reports of unethical behaviour among some HCP available in the public domain in Ghana, then there appears to be an issue of cognitive dissonance between HCP knowledge of ethics, and their actual everyday practice as HCP.

Keywords

• Healthcare ethics, knowledge, healthcare professionals, Sub-Saharan Africa, ethics education