Understanding Ethical Principles in Clinical Research Using Popular Films

Abstract

Popular films have been used to illustrate issues that may be difficult to fully understand in lectures. We hypothesise that bioethics applied to clinical research may be better understood if students are exposed to the real or fictional characters depicted in commercial films. We designed a randomised, parallel study to compare the effectiveness of two popular films, Miss Evers’ Boys and Extreme Measures, to improve the understanding of bioethical principles in students of Human Biology. Students were randomly assigned to each experimental group and they completed a self-administered questionnaire to establish the subjective improvement of their knowledge on bioethical principles applied to clinical research. Ninety-four students participated in the experiment. Fifty students were assigned to Extreme Measures and forty-four to Miss Evers’ Boys. Students rated both films as useful to learn bioethics in clinical research. Principles of justice and autonomy were better understood than beneficence and non-maleficence. No differences were seen between the films’ scores for each question. Popular films may be useful in teaching the application of bioethical principles to students. We conclude that the choice of film is critical and a list of questions prepared by teachers may eventually help the students to focus on the most important points.

Keywords

• principios bioéticos
• investigación clínica
• enseñanza, películas comerciales