Abstract

In a market driven environment hospitals are increasingly challenged to maintain their base in the community as centers for caring. Institutional Ethics Committees were developed within the hospital to address the ethical issues that have accompanied the rapid technological advances in medical care, the weakening of the traditional relationship of trust between the patient and the physician, the growing market dominance of managed care as a major provider of health care, and the pluralistic values in contemporary American culture. The literature suggests that the success of the IEC in meeting its mission is tied to institutional support of the IEC, a clear mission statement, and a multidisciplinary membership interested in the work of the committee and skilled in interdisciplinary practice . This study explored the organizational and personal factors that contribute to the satisfaction of the IEC member with their service on the committee. It was hypothesized that salient factors such as the member's view of human nature, their ethical perspective, the structural features of their committee, their perception of group processes within the committee, and personal descriptives would influence the member's level of satisfaction. The study utilized an exploratory-descriptive multicorrelational design. Reliability and validity were established for each of the study scales including previously developed scales and those developed for the study. The study population included IEC members from a variety of professional backgrounds from IECs in four contiguous states in the southern Mid-Atlantic region. ;Initial analyses of the study hypotheses revealed weak correlation among the major study variables. However, multivariate analyses of the independent variables of group process and participation in ethical training and the dependent variable, member level of satisfaction were significantly related accounting for 31% of the variance. Further analyses of the dimensions of group process revealed that the ownership dimension of group process combined with participation in ethical training and the facilitation dimension of the dependent variable, member satisfaction accounted for 37% of the variance. The results suggest that providing members with opportunities for ongoing ethics education and attending to group processes in committee work positively influence the IEC member's level of satisfaction with service on the IEC. Social workers may expand their visibility and viability on the IEC and within the institution by supporting the educational function of the IEC and promoting effective group processes