Responses of direct-care paraprofessional mental health staff to hypothetical ethics violations.
OBJECTIVE
The study examined the responses of paraprofessional mental health direct-care staff to hypothetical ethics violations in the care of persons with mental illness.


METHODS
Eighty-five paraprofessionals in a medium-sized Midwestern psychiatric facility responded to a survey that presented ten hypothetical ethics violations varying in severity. For each scenario, respondents were asked to indicate the likelihood that they would ignore the violation, confront the care provider who had acted unethically, or report the violation to an immediate supervisor or to someone in authority over the immediate supervisor. The survey also assessed the paraprofessionals' perceived skills, knowledge, and need for additional training in professional ethics.


RESULTS
Survey respondents were significantly less likely to ignore situations of moderate or high severity, compared with situations of low severity, and were significantly more likely to report a moderately severe or highly severe incident than an incident of low severity.


CONCLUSIONS
The response of mental health paraprofessionals to hypothetical ethics violations suggests that they are able to recognize and evaluate the severity of ethics violations and weigh the potential effects of their responses. However, their responses to hypothetical situations may not reflect how they would respond to actual ethics violations on the job.
Dracy
D L
DL
Department of Psychology, University of South Dakota, Vermillion 57069, USA.
Yutrzenka
B A
BA
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D030881:Disclosure; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D008875:Middle Aged; D015146:Midwestern United States; D009735:Nursing Homes; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000592:standards*; D011361:Professional Competence; D028743:Professional Misconduct; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D035642:Whistleblowing; D000078329:Workforce