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How Much Dentists are Ethically Concerned about Overtreatment; a Vignette-Based Survey in Switzerland

Kazemian, Ali and Berg, Isabelle and Finkel, Christina and Yazdani, Shahram and Zeilhofer, Hans-Florian and Juergens, Philipp. (2015) How Much Dentists are Ethically Concerned about Overtreatment; a Vignette-Based Survey in Switzerland. BMC medical ethics, 16. p. 43.

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Official URL: http://edoc.unibas.ch/41867/

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Abstract

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.
Faculties and Departments:03 Faculty of Medicine > Departement Public Health > Ehemalige Einheiten Public Health > Medizin- und Gesundheitsethik (Reiter-Theil)
08 Cross-disciplinary Subjects > Ethik > Institut für Bio- und Medizinethik > Bio- und Medizinethik (Elger)
03 Faculty of Medicine > Departement Public Health > Ethik in der Medizin > Bio- und Medizinethik (Elger)
UniBasel Contributors:Reiter-Theil, Stella
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:BioMed Central
ISSN:1472-6939
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Identification Number:
Last Modified:13 Sep 2016 09:37
Deposited On:13 Sep 2016 09:37

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