• P-ISSN 2277-3525 E-ISSN 2582-7901

Journal of Multidisciplinary
Dental Research

Article

Journal of Multidisciplinary Dental Research

DOI: 10.38138/JMDR/v10i2.17

Volume: 10, Issue: 2, Pages: 43-49

Original Article

Ethical Dilemmas and Empathy Towards Patient Care among Dental Students in Telangana State - A Cross-Sectional Study

Gadiraju Leela Lohitha1, T N Abhinav2,∗, P Parthasarathi3, M Monica4, Koppula Yadav Rao3, A Sheetal2

1Postgraduate, Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sri Sai College of Dental Surgery, Vikarabad, Telangana, India
2Associate Professor, Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sri Sai College of Dental Surgery, Vikarabad, Telangana, India
3Professor, Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sri Sai College of Dental Surgery, Vikarabad, Telangana, India
4Professor & HOD, Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sri Sai College of Dental Surgery, Vikarabad, Telangana, India

*Corresponding Author
Email: [email protected]

Received Date:11 August 2024, Accepted Date:08 October 2024, Published Date:30 December 2024

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the association between Ethical dilemmas and Empathy among dental house surgeons of Telangana state. Methodology: A Cross-sectional study was conducted among House surgeons of 7 dental institutions in Telangana state in month of September 2022. A 26-item standardized closed ended questionnaire was administered to study participants which comprise of two domains – dilemmas and empathy. Dilemmas were presented as 6-clinical case scenarios depicting various principles of ethics while Empathy was measured using the HPS-version of Jeferson scale questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to the study participants and collected on the same day. Descriptives and chi-square test was done to determine the association between dilemmas and levels of empathy. Results: A total of 382 house surgeons, 81.4% were females with mean age of 23.23 ± 1.098. Participants showed high respect for autonomy, with 84.6% in scenario 1 and 64.5% in scenario 2. However, respect for non-maleficence was lower which is about 31.7% & 48.1% in scenarios 3 & 4 respectively. Respect for principle of beneficence was 22% while truthfulness was 74.3%. Among the study participants, 46.3% exhibited moderate level of empathy. There exists no association between dilemmic situation and levels empathy except for truthfulness. Conclusion: Ethical dilemmas are common during dental practice and the way they are handled differ among dentists. Although most of them were empathetic there is no significant association between dilemma and levels of empathy except for truthfulness.

Keywords: Ethical Principles, Dilemma, Empathy, Dental ethics, Case Scenarios

References

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© 2024 Published by International Dental Educationists’ Association (IDEA). This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) 

  • 19 January 2025
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