How much dentists are ethically concerned about overtreatment; a vignette-based survey in Switzerland

BMC Medical Ethics

Stella Reiter-Theil¹  Philipp Juergens²  Hans-Florian Zeilhofer²  Shahram Yazdani³  Christina Finkel²  Isabelle Berg²  Ali Kazemian¹ 

[1]Department of Clinical Ethics, Psychiatric Hospital of the University Basel, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland

[2]University Basel, Hightech Research Center, Basel, Switzerland

[3]Educational Development Center (EDC), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

关键词: Dentists;    Dental care;    Ethical issues;    Undertreatment;    Overtreatment;   

Others  :  1218615
DOI  :  10.1186/s12910-015-0036-6

 received in 2014-10-04, accepted in 2015-06-05,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Overtreatment (or unnecessary treatment) is when medical or dental services are provided with a higher volume or cost than is appropriate. This study aimed to investigate how a group of dentists in Switzerland, a wealthy country known to have high standards of healthcare including dentistry, evaluated the meaning of unnecessary treatments from an ethical perspective and, assessed the expected frequency of different possible behaviors among their peers.

Methods

A vignette describing a situation that is susceptible for overtreatment of a patient was presented to a group of dentists. The vignette was followed by five options. A questionnaire including the vignette was posted to 2482 dentists in the German-speaking areas of Switzerland. The respondents were asked to rate each option according to their estimation about its prevalence and their judgment about the degree to which the behavior is ethically sound.

Results

732 completed questionnaires were returned. According to the responses, the most ethical and the most unethical options are considered to be the most and the least prevalent behaviors among dentists practicing in Switzerland, respectively.

Conclusions

Suggesting unnecessary treatments to patients seems to be an ethically unacceptable conduct in the eyes of a sample of dentists in Switzerland. Although the respondents believed their colleagues were very likely to behave in an ethical way in response to a situation that is susceptible to overtreatment, they still seemed to be concerned about the prevalence of unethical behaviors in this regard.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Kazemian et al.

【 图 表 】

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