Ethics and professionalism among community health workers in Tamil Nadu, India: A qualitative study

IF 0.9 3区哲学 Q3 ETHICS

Developing World Bioethics Pub Date : 2023-07-18 DOI:10.1111/dewb.12414

Vijayaprasad Gopichandran, Sudharshini Subramaniam, Balasubramanian Palanisamy, Priyadarshini Chidambaram

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Abstract

Community health workers (CHW) are the backbone of the public health system in developing countries. Little is known about the practice of ethics and professionalism in their work. This study was conducted to explore the experiential wisdom of ethics and professionalism among CHWs in Tamil Nadu. We conducted a qualitative study among 125 CHWs in six districts of Tamil Nadu. We found that the CHWs went beyond the call of their duty to do good to the community. Their conceptualization of autonomy ranged from shared to full paternalistic decision making. The CHWs were sensitive to issues of privacy and confidentiality, but the discussion on these topics were limited. They reflected the societal norms of gender, class, and caste hierarchies in their work. They had to work amidst difficult power struggles and had their own innovative strategies to subvert power. In conclusion, there is a need for framing a code of ethics and professionalism for CHWs and training in ethics and professionalism for them to help them effectively deliberate on ethical issues.

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印度泰米尔纳德邦社区卫生工作者的职业道德和专业精神：定性研究。

社区保健工作者（CHW）是发展中国家公共卫生系统的中坚力量。人们对他们在工作中践行职业道德和专业精神的情况知之甚少。本研究旨在探索泰米尔纳德邦社区保健工作者在职业道德和专业精神方面的经验智慧。我们对泰米尔纳德邦六个地区的 125 名社区保健工作者进行了定性研究。我们发现，社区保健工作者超出了他们的职责范围，为社区做好事。他们对自主权的概念从共同决策到完全家长式决策不等。社区保健工作者对隐私和保密问题很敏感，但对这些问题的讨论很有限。她们在工作中反映了性别、阶级和种姓等级的社会规范。他们不得不在艰难的权力斗争中工作，并有自己的创新策略来颠覆权力。总之，有必要为社区保健工作者制定职业道德和专业精神守则，并对他们进行职业道德和专业精神培训，以帮助他们有效地讨论职业道德问题。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Developing World Bioethics 医学-医学：伦理

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

4.50%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Developing World Bioethics provides long needed case studies, teaching materials, news in brief, and legal backgrounds to bioethics scholars and students in developing and developed countries alike. This companion journal to Bioethics also features high-quality peer reviewed original articles. It is edited by well-known bioethicists who are working in developing countries, yet it will also be open to contributions and commentary from developed countries'' authors. Developing World Bioethics is the only journal in the field dedicated exclusively to developing countries'' bioethics issues. The journal is an essential resource for all those concerned about bioethical issues in the developing world. Members of Ethics Committees in developing countries will highly value a special section dedicated to their work.