BackgroundThere is a lack of empirical research regarding the outcomes of such clinical ethics support methods as moral case deliberation. Empirical research in how healthcare professionals perceive potential outcomes is needed in order to evaluate the value and effectiveness of ethics support; and help to design future outcomes research. The aim was to use the European Moral Case Deliberation Outcome Instrument instrument to examine the importance of various MCD outcomes, according to healthcare professionals, prior to participation.MethodsA North European field survey (...) among healthcare professionals drawn from 73 workplaces in a variety of healthcare settings in the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The Euro-MCD instrument was used.ResultsAll outcomes regarding the domains of moral reflexivity, moral attitude, emotional support, collaboration, impact at organisational level and concrete results, were perceived as very or quite important by 76%–97% of the 703 respondents. Outcomes regarding collaboration and concrete results were perceived as most important. Outcomes assessed as least important were mostly about moral attitude. ‘Better interactions with patient/family’ emerged as a new domain from the qualitative analysis. Dutch respondents perceived most of the outcomes as significantly less important than the Scandinavians, especially regarding emotional support. Furthermore, men, those who were younger, and physician-respondents scored most of the outcomes as statistically significantly less important compared with the other respondents.ConclusionsThe findings indicate a need for a broad instrument such as the Euro-MCD. Outcomes related to better interactions between professionals and patients must also be included in the future. The empirical findings raise the normative question of whether outcomes that were perceived as less important, such as moral reflexivity and moral attitude outcomes, should still be included. In the future, a combination of empirical findings and normative reflection will contribute to the revision of the instrument. (shrink)

A systematic literature review on evaluation of clinical ethics support services in mental healthcare is presented and discussed. The focus was on (a) forms of clinical ethics support services, (b) evaluation of clinical ethics support services, (c) contexts and participants and (d) results. Five studies were included. The ethics support activities described were moral case deliberations and ethics rounds. Different qualitative and quantitative research methods were utilized. The results show that (a) participants felt that they gained an increased insight into (...) moral issues through systematic reflection; (b) there was improved cooperation among multidisciplinary team members; (c) it was uncertain whether clinical ethics support services led to better patient care; (d) the issue of patient and client participation is complex; and (e) the implementation process is challenging. Clinical ethics support services have mainly been studied through the experiences of the participating facilitators and healthcare professionals. Hence, there is limited knowledge of whether and how various types of clinical ethics support services influence the quality of care and how patients and relatives may evaluate clinical ethics support services. Based on the six excluded ‘grey zone articles’, in which there was an implicit focus on ethics reflection, other ways of working with ethical reflection in practice are discussed. Implementing and evaluating clinical ethics support services as approaches to clinical ethics support that are more integrated into the development of good practice are in focus. In order to meet some of the shortcomings of the field of clinical ethics support services, a research project that aims to strengthen ethics support in the mental health services, including patients’ and caregivers’ views on ethical challenges, is presented. (shrink)

An important and supposedly impactful form of clinical ethics support is moral case deliberation. Empirical evidence, however, is limited with regard to its actual impact. With this literature review, we aim to investigate the empirical evidence of MCD, thereby a) informing the practice, and b) providing a focus for further research on and development of MCD in healthcare settings. A systematic literature search was conducted in the electronic databases PubMed, CINAHL and Web of Science. Both the data collection and the (...) qualitative data analysis followed a stepwise approach, including continuous peer review and careful documentation of our decisions. The qualitative analysis was supported by ATLAS.ti. Based on a qualitative analysis of 25 empirical papers, we identified four clusters of themes: 1) facilitators and barriers in the preparation and context of MCD, i.e., a safe and open atmosphere created by a facilitator, a concrete case, commitment of participants, a focus on the moral dimension, and a supportive organization; 2) changes that are brought about on a personal and inter-professional level, with regard to professional’s feelings of relief, relatedness and confidence; understanding of the perspectives of colleagues, one’s own perspective and the moral issue at stake; and awareness of the moral dimension of one’s work and awareness of the importance of reflection; 3) changes that are brought about in caring for patients and families; and 4) changes that are brought about on an organizational level. This review shows that MCD brings about changes in practice, mostly for the professional in inter-professional interactions. Most reported changes are considered positive, although challenges, frustrations and absence of change were also reported. Empirical evidence of a concrete impact on the quality of patient care is limited and is mostly based on self-reports. With patient-focused and methodologically sound qualitative research, the practice and the value of MCD in healthcare settings can be better understood, thus making a stronger case for this kind of ethics support. (shrink)

BackgroundMoral case deliberation as a form of clinical ethics support is usually implemented in health care institutions and educational programs. While there is no previous research on the use of clinical ethics support on the level of health care regulation, employees of regulatory bodies are regularly confronted with moral challenges. This pilot study describes and evaluates the use of MCD at the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate.The objective of this pilot study is to investigate: 1) the current way of dealing with (...) moral issues at the IGZ; 2) experience with and evaluation of MCD as clinical ethics support, and 3) future preferences and needs regarding clinical ethics support for dealing with moral questions at the IGZ.MethodsWe performed an explorative pilot study. The research questions were assessed by means of: 1) interviews with MCD participants during four focus groups; and 2) interviews with six key stakeholders at the IGZ. De qualitative data is illustrated by data from questionnaires on MCD outcomes, perspective taking and MCD evaluation.ResultsProfessionals do not always recognize moral issues. Employees report a need for regular and structured moral support in health care regulation. The MCD meetings are evaluated positively. The most important outcomes of MCD are feeling secure and learning from others. Additional support is needed to successfully implement MCD at the Inspectorate.ConclusionWe conclude that the respondents perceive moral case deliberation as a useful form of clinical ethics support for dealing with moral questions and issues in health care regulation. (shrink)

Clinical ethics support, in particular Moral Case Deliberation, aims to support health care providers to manage ethically difficult situations. However, there is a lack of evaluation instruments regarding outcomes of clinical ethics support in general and regarding Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) in particular. There also is a lack of clarity and consensuses regarding which MCD outcomes are beneficial. In addition, MCD outcomes might be context-sensitive. Against this background, there is a need for a standardised but flexible outcome evaluation instrument. The (...) aim of this study was to develop a multi-contextual evaluation instrument measuring health care providers’ experiences and perceived importance of outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation. (shrink)

Background There has been little attention paid to research on the outcomes of clinical ethics support or critical reflection on what constitutes a good CES outcome. Understanding how CES users perceive the importance of CES outcomes can contribute to a better understanding, use of and normative reflection on CES outcomes. Objective To describe the perceptions of Dutch healthcare professionals on important outcomes of moral case deliberation, prior to MCD participation, and to compare results between respondents. Methods This mixed-methods study used (...) both the Euro-MCD instrument and semi-structured interviews. Healthcare professionals who were about to implement MCD were recruited from nursing homes, hospitals, psychiatry and mentally disabled care institutions. Results 331 healthcare professionals completed the Euro-MCD instrument, 13 healthcare professionals were interviewed. The outcomes perceived as most important were ‘more open communication’, ‘better mutual understanding’, ‘concrete actions’, ‘see the situation from different perspectives’, ‘consensus on how to manage the situation’ and ‘find more courses of action’. Interviewees also perceived improving quality of care, professionalism and the organization as important. Women, nurses, managers and professionals in mentally disabled care rated outcomes more highly than other respondents. Conclusions Dutch healthcare professionals perceived the MCD outcomes related to collaboration as most important. The empirical findings can contribute to shared ownership of MCD and a more specific use of MCD in different contexts. They can inform international comparative research on different CES types and contribute to normative discussions concerning CES outcomes. Future studies should reflect upon important MCD outcomes after having experienced MCD. (shrink)

A traditional approach to teaching medical ethics aims to provide knowledge about ethics. This is in line with an epistemological view on ethics in which moral expertise is assumed to be located in theoretical knowledge and not in the moral experience of healthcare professionals. The aim of this paper is to present an alternative, contextual approach to teaching ethics, which is grounded in a pragmatic-hermeneutical and dialogical ethics. This approach is called moral case deliberation. Within moral case deliberation, healthcare professionals (...) bring in their actual moral questions during a structured dialogue. The ethicist facilitates the learning process by using various conversation methods in order to find answers to the case and to develop moral competencies. The case deliberations are not unique events, but are a structural part of the professional training on the work floor within healthcare institutions. This article presents the underlying theory on ethics and illustrates this approach with an example of a moral case deliberation project in a Dutch psychiatric hospital. The project was evaluated using the method of responsive evaluation. This method provided us with rich information about the implementation process and effects the research process itself also lent support to the process of implementation. (shrink)

Deliberative ways of dealing with ethical issues in health care are expanding. Moral case deliberation is an example, providing group-wise, structured reflection on dilemmas from practice. Although moral case deliberation is well described in literature, aims and results of moral case deliberation sessions are unknown. This research shows (a) why managers introduce moral case deliberation and (b) what moral case deliberation participants experience as moral case deliberation results. A responsive evaluation was conducted, explicating moral case deliberation experiences by analysing aims (...) (N = 78) and harvest (N = 255). A naturalistic data collection included interviews with managers and evaluation questionnaires of moral case deliberation participants (nurses). From the analysis, moral case deliberation appeals for cooperation, team bonding, critical attitude towards routines and nurses’ empowerment. Differences are that managers aim to foster identity of the nursing profession, whereas nurses emphasize learning processes and understanding perspectives. We conclude that moral case deliberation influences team cooperation that cannot be controlled with traditional management tools, but requires time and dialogue. Exchanging aims and harvest between manager and team could result in co-creating (moral) practice in which improvements for daily cooperation result from bringing together perspectives of managers and team members. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce narrative and hermeneutical perspectives to clinical ethics support services (CESS). We propose a threefold consideration of ‘theory’ and show how it is interwoven with ‘practice’ as we go along. First, we look at theory in its foundational role: in our case ‘narrative ethics’ and ‘philosophical hermeneutics’ provide a theoretical base for clinical ethics by focusing on human identities entangled in stories and on moral understanding as a dialogical process. Second, we consider the role of theoretical (...) notions in helping practitioners to understand their situation in clinical ethics practice, by using notions like ‘story’, ‘responsibility’, or ‘vulnerability’ to make explicit and explain their practical experience. Such theoretical notions help us to interpret clinical situations from an ethical perspective and to foster moral awareness of practitioners. And, thirdly, we examine how new theoretical concepts are developed by interpreting practice, using practice to form and improve our ethical theory. In this paper, we discuss this threefold use of theory in clinical ethics support services by reflecting on our own theoretical assumptions, methodological steps and practical experiences as ethicists, and by providing examples from our daily work. In doing so, we illustrate that theory and practice are interwoven, as theoretical understanding is dependent upon practical experience, and vice-versa. (shrink)

Health care professionals often face moral dilemmas. Not dealing constructively with moral dilemmas can cause moral distress and can negatively affect the quality of care. Little research has been documented with methodologies meant to support professionals in care for the homeless in dealing with their dilemmas. Moral case deliberation is a method for systematic reflection on moral dilemmas and is increasingly being used as ethics support for professionals in various health-care domains. This study deals with the question: What is the (...) contribution of MCD in helping professionals in an institution for care for the homeless to deal with their moral dilemmas? A mixed-methods responsive evaluation design was used to answer the research question. Five teams of professionals from a Dutch care institution for the homeless participated in MCD three times. Professionals in care for the homeless value MCD positively. They report that MCD helped them to identify the moral dilemma/question, and that they learned from other people’s perspectives while reflecting and deliberating on the values at stake in the dilemma or moral question. They became aware of the moral dimension of moral dilemmas, of related norms and values, of other perspectives, and learned to formulate a moral standpoint. Some experienced the influence of MCD in the way they dealt with moral dilemmas in daily practice. Half of the professionals expect MCD will influence the way they deal with moral dilemmas in the future. Most of them were in favour of further implementation of MCD in their organization. (shrink)

This article describes a process of developing, implementing and evaluating a clinical ethics support service intervention with the goal of building up a context-sensitive structure of minimal clinical-ethics in an oncology department without prior clinical ethics structure. Scholars from different disciplines have called for an improvement in the evaluation of clinical ethics support services for different reasons over several decades. However, while a lot has been said about the concepts and methodological challenges of evaluating CESS up to the present time, (...) relatively few empirical studies have been carried out. The aim of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it describes a process of development, modifying and evaluating a CESS intervention as part of the ETHICO research project, using the approach of qualitative-formative evaluation. On the other hand, it provides a methodological analysis which specifies the contribution of qualitative empirical methods to the evaluation of CESS. We conclude with a consideration of the strengths and limitations of qualitative evaluation research with regards to the evaluation and development of context sensitive CESS. We further discuss our own approach in contrast to rather traditional consult or committee models. (shrink)

Evaluation of clinical ethics support services (CESS) has attracted considerable interest in recent decades. However, few evaluation studies are explicit about normative presuppositions which underlie the goals and the research design of CESS evaluation. In this paper, we provide an account of normative premises of different approaches to CESS evaluation and argue that normativity should be a focus of considerations when designing and conducting evaluation research of CESS. In a first step, we present three different approaches to CESS evaluation from (...) published literature. Next to a brief sketch of the well-established approaches of ‘descriptive evaluation’ and ‘evaluation of outcomes’, we will give a more detailed description of a third approach to evaluation—‘reconstructing quality norms of CESS’—which is explicit about the normative presuppositions of its research (design). In the subsequent section, we will analyse the normative premises of each of the three approaches to CESS evaluation. We will conclude with a brief argument for more sensitivity towards the normativity of CESS and its evaluation research. (shrink)

Evaluating clinical ethics support services has been hailed as important research task. At the same time, there is considerable debate about how to evaluate CESS appropriately. The criticism, which has been aired, refers to normative as well as empirical aspects of evaluating CESS. In this paper, we argue that a first necessary step for progress is to better understand the intervention in CESS. Tools of complex intervention research methodology may provide relevant means in this respect. In a first step, we (...) introduce principles of “complex intervention research” and show how CESS fulfil the criteria of “complex interventions”. In a second step, we develop a generic “conceptual framework” for “ethics consultation on request” as standard for many forms of ethics consultation in clinical ethics practice. We apply this conceptual framework to the model of “bioethics mediation” to make explicit the specific structural and procedural elements of this form of ethics consultation on request. In a final step we conduct a comparative analysis of two different types of CESS, which have been subject to evaluation research: “proactive ethics consultation” and “moral case deliberation” and discuss implications for evaluating both types of CESS. To make explicit different premises of implemented CESS interventions by means of conceptual frameworks can inform the search for sound empirical evaluation of CESS. In addition, such work provides a starting point for further reflection about what it means to offer “good” CESS. (shrink)

Health care professionals often face moral dilemmas. Not dealing constructively with moral dilemmas can cause moral distress and can negatively affect the quality of care. Little research has been documented with methodologies meant to support professionals in care for the homeless in dealing with their dilemmas. Moral case deliberation is a method for systematic reflection on moral dilemmas and is increasingly being used as ethics support for professionals in various health-care domains. This study deals with the question: What is the (...) contribution of MCD in helping professionals in an institution for care for the homeless to deal with their moral dilemmas? A mixed-methods responsive evaluation design was used to answer the research question. Five teams of professionals from a Dutch care institution for the homeless participated in MCD three times. Professionals in care for the homeless value MCD positively. They report that MCD helped them to identify the moral dilemma/question, and that they learned from other people’s perspectives while reflecting and deliberating on the values at stake in the dilemma or moral question. They became aware of the moral dimension of moral dilemmas, of related norms and values, of other perspectives, and learned to formulate a moral standpoint. Some experienced the influence of MCD in the way they dealt with moral dilemmas in daily practice. Half of the professionals expect MCD will influence the way they deal with moral dilemmas in the future. Most of them were in favour of further implementation of MCD in their organization. (shrink)