Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Health Care Ethics Among Medical, Dental and Nursing Colleges Students and Faculty in Visakhapatnam: A Questionnaire Study

BACKGROUND: Dental ethics revolves around the extent to which actions within the dental practice promote good and reduce harm.AIM: The study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice among the medical, dental, and nursing college students and faculty Visakhapatnam.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:  The 26-item questionnaire, self-administered, semi-structured, was designed to access the student's and faculty's knowledge, attitudes, and practices in the globe of healthcare ethics. With all the exclusion and inclusion criteria, the total sample derived as 1190. Statistical analysis was done using the SPSS Software Version 21.0 with the significant p-value at ≤ 0.05. Descriptive statistics, chi-Square test and ANOVA test used to compare the knowledge attitude and practice of dental, medical, and nursing students and faculty.
RESULTS: Out of 1,190 participants, 456 participants belonged to medical out of which 239 are females, and 217 are males, 424 participants are from the specialty dental, 248 are females, and 176 are 310 participants belong to nursing in which 230 females and 80 males. The knowledge and attitude of dental college interns and postgraduates showed no significant difference in the Hippocratic oath, Nuremberg code, ICMR guidelines, Helsinki declaration with p-value 0.971, 0.899, 0.506, and 0.768. The knowledge and attitude of medical college interns and postgraduates showed a significant difference in the Hippocratic oath, Nuremberg code, ICMR guidelines with p-values 0.002, 0.040 and 0.011, respectively. The knowledge and attitude of final years showed considerable differences from the third years of nursing. 
CONCLUSION: The knowledge and attitude of health care ethics are significantly more in medical postgraduates than the medical interns, showed no significant difference in dental interns and graduates, and showed significant differences in nursing students.