article · BMC Medical Ethics
A survey of 410 healthcare workers in a resource-limited setting evaluated awareness and perceptions regarding patient confidentiality. Approximately 59.8 percent of participants showed good knowledge, while 49.5 percent demonstrated a favourable attitude towards maintaining patient confidentiality. Knowledge levels were significantly higher among men, professionals who had received medical ethics training, and those who had experienced ethical dilemmas. Similarly, favourable attitudes were linked to ethics training, experiencing ethical dilemmas, maintaining direct contact with patients, and attending to higher numbers of patients. The findings show that while basic knowledge is relatively sound, attitudes towards confidentiality remain limited. Establishing continuous medical ethics training programmes, both prior to hospital employment and during active clinical practice, can strengthen professional standards.
Patient confidentiality is essential for safe, dignified, and trustworthy clinical care. When healthcare staff lack favourable attitudes or clear understanding of privacy rights, patients risk having sensitive personal details compromised. Identifying these operational gaps highlights the need for targeted ethics education, helping healthcare facilities uphold legal and ethical standards even within constrained healthcare environments.
The findings point to an applied opportunity in developing structured medical ethics training packages for healthcare organisations and clinical workforces. Potential users include hospital administrators, medical schools, and providers of continuing professional development. Because the study is an observational assessment, translation into validated educational modules or hospital compliance programmes remains at an applied, early stage rather than ready for immediate commercial deployment.
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BACKGROUND: Respecting patients' confidentiality is an ethical and legal responsibility for health professionals and the cornerstone of care excellence. This study aims to assess health professionals' knowledge, attitudes, and associated factors towards patients' confidentiality in a resource-limited setting. METHODS: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 423 health professionals. Stratified sampling methods were used to select the participants, and a structured self-administer questionnaire was used for data collection. The data was entered using Epi-data version 4.6 and analyzed using SPSS, version 25. Bi-variable and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were used to measure the association between the dependent and independent variables. Odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals and P value was calculated to determine the strength of association and to evaluate statistical significance. RESULT: Out of 410 participants, about 59.8% with [95% CI (54.8-68.8%)] and 49.5% with [95% CI (44.5-54.5%)] had good knowledge and favorable attitude towards patents confidentiality respectively. Being male (AOR = 1.63, 95% CI [1.03-2.59]), taking training on medical ethics (AOR = 1.73, 95% CI = [1.11-2.70]), facing ethical dilemmas (AOR = 3.07, 95% CI [1.07-8.79]) were significantly associated factors for health professional knowledge towards patients' confidentiality. Likewise, taking training on medical ethics (AOR = 2.30, 95% CI [1.42-3.72]), having direct contact with the patients (AOR = 3.06, 95% CI [1.12-8.34]), visiting more patient (AOR = 4.38, 95% CI [2.46-7.80]), and facing ethical dilemma (AOR = 3.56, 95% CI [1.23-10.26]) were significant factors associated with attitude of health professionals towards patient confidentiality. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study revealed that health professionals have a limited attitude towards patient confidentiality but have relatively good knowledge. Providing a continuing medical ethics training package for health workers before joining the hospital and in between the working time could be recommended to enhance health professionals' knowledge and attitude towards patient confidentiality.
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DOI: 10.1186/s12910-022-00765-0
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