Physician's knowledge about professional medical responsibility

Abstract

Justification: Medical malpractice represents a concern issue due to its impact on the health of patients and physicians. Objective: To evaluate the level of knowledge of Honduran medical professionals on relevant aspects of professional responsibility or medical malpractice. Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out; data recollection was done by means of an electronic survey type instrument in Google® forms, which was validated by a group of experts and covered sociodemographic variables of those surveyed, as well as five areas of knowledge. These areas are defined as: legal, conceptual, patients’ rights, doctor's duties and conditions for reporting. The population surveyed: Honduran medical students with six or more years of medical school, regardless of the university where they studied; medical residents and professionals, either general practitioners or specialists. Data analysis was performed using Excel® 2010, and Program R, version 3.6. For a better understanding of the results, a descriptive scale was constructed according to the success percentages obtained. From 0-39% "deficient", from 40-59% "insufficient", from 60 to 80% "acceptable", 81-90% "adequate", from 91% onwards it was classified as "knows the subject". Results: The level of knowledge of the doctors, regardless of their academic training, age or sex, center where they work, was located at a level between insufficient and acceptable; being the legal area the one where the lowest score was observed, with 51.2% of successes. Conclusions: Failures in medical professional responsibility could be closely linked to the deficit of adequate competencies and skills of students and physicians during the medical act.