article · BMC Health Services Research
Medical laboratory practitioners generate data that underpin critical clinical decisions. This study evaluated how health laboratory staff in Kinondoni District, Tanzania, understand and comply with ethical conduct standards set out in ISO 15189:2012. Using an exploratory qualitative design, researchers gathered insights through in-depth interviews with 16 purposively selected laboratory workers, supplemented by non-participatory observations. The findings revealed that although most practitioners claimed awareness of and adherence to ethical requirements, actual misconduct persists in practice. Notable issues observed included mislabelling of samples, communication errors with clients, and breaches of confidential information. The findings highlight that self-regulation alone is insufficient to maintain professional standards. Strengthening ethical compliance will require institutional policy reforms, structured and mandatory continuing education programmes, supportive supervision, routine monitoring, and formalised accountability mechanisms that enforce penalties for non-compliance.
Clinical laboratory results guide crucial medical choices and treatments. When laboratory staff make errors such as mislabelling samples or breaching client confidentiality, patient safety and trust in healthcare services are compromised. Identifying gaps between ethical awareness and daily practice helps health institutions design better oversight, training programmes, and quality management systems to protect patient welfare.
This research informs operational practices, management frameworks, and training curricula for clinical laboratories, hospital managers, and professional oversight boards. It is applied field research assessing operational compliance in health facilities, but the abstract does not indicate an application pathway for commercial product development.
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BACKGROUND: Laboratory science rears a special pattern in medicine, which helps promote different biological phenomena, which will aid in the management of disease through analysis of samples and laboratory tests. Laboratory practitioners provide results that are used to make critical decisions. The aim of the study was to evaluate how health laboratory practitioners understand and comply with the laboratory ethical conduct as per ISO 15189:2012. METHODOLOGY: An exploratory study design that involved a qualitative approach for data collection. A total of 16 laboratory personnel who were purposively selected participated in the study. Primary data was collected through in-depth interview guided by semi-structured questions.These interviews were audio recorded, and the researcher verified the recordings for accuracy and completeness. Data saturation was reached after interviewing 14 laboratory practitioners. Additionally, non-participatory observation were conducted to complement the data. The audio recordings were transcribed into text, translated into English, and analyzed using a thematic analysis method with a deductive approach, guided by pre-determined themes. NVivo 12 software was used to facilitate the analysis. RESULTS: Despite most of the laboratory practitioners claiming to be aware of and follow laboratory ethical conduct, there were several instances of misconduct that still exist in the laboratories, e.g, mislabeling and miscommunication with clients. study has brought about valuable knowledge on ethical conduct among laboratory practitioners, the importance of abiding by ethical standards while performing laboratory activities, and the impact of these on the results. Prior research suggests that ethical compliance should be reinforced through institutional policies, leadership commitment, and accountability frameworks rather than relying solely on self-regulation. Laboratories should prioritise embedding integrity as a core institutional value through structured ethical guidelines, leadership-driven ethical culture, and continuous professional education. CONCLUSION: There were still some incidences of information breaching that still happen to some of the laboratories. More frequent trainings were of concern along with the enhancing supportive supervision and accountability mechanisms to address ethical breaches through formalized corrective actions rather than informal reminders, integrate ethical guidelines into laboratory management systems, ensuring routine monitoring and enforcement rather than relying on self-regulation establish structured and mandatory ethical training programs with clear attendance or each laboratory staff to attend all ethical trainings with a call to the responsible Laboratory practitioners board, policies should enforce accountability by implementing appropriate penalties for practitioners who fail to comply with ethical standards.
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DOI: 10.1186/s12913-025-12556-5
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