Evidence of bioethical discourse and behaviors in health professions

Abstract

This study aimed to identify bioethical situations and behaviors in health professions reported in the literature. This integrative review of scientific articles indexed in the Virtual Health Library databases, published between 2014 and 2019, used the following keywords: “health personnel,” “professional practice,” “ethics, professional,” “discourse,” and “bioethics.” Twenty-one studies were selected for discussion, with five categories identified in the analysis: bioethics during professional training; bioethics as a form of humanizing healthcare; interprofessional relationships, rights and duties of patients and professionals; bioethics in decisions in the beginning and end of life; and decision making in healthcare. Patient autonomy was the bioethical principle most often addressed in various clinical circumstances, especially in end-of-life dilemmas.