OT Code of Ethics & Guidelines of Code of Ethics

• Ethics is about reflecting, thinking, critically reasoning, justifying, acting on, and evaluating decisions.
• The term ethics stems from the Greek word ethos, meaning “character.”
• The three primary roles of ethics committees are consultation, education, and policy review and development.
• Ethics committees support practitioners who need assistance in reasoning about ethical dimensions of care.
• Ethics is a branch of philosophy that involves systemic study and reflection providing language, methods, and guidelines to study and reflect on morality.
• In contrast, the term morality refers to social conventions about right and wrong human conduct and sets the stage for ethical behavior.
• Values, duty, and moral character guide reasoning and inform ethical decisions.
• Values are the beliefs or objects a person holds dear.
• Duties describe an action that is required.
• Moral character describes traits or dispositions that facilitate trust and human flourishing (e.g., compassion, honesty).
• There are three types of morality: personal or individual, group or organizational, and societal.
• Personal morality includes individual beliefs and values.
• Acting in accordance with these values preserves one’s integrity.
• Group morality is the morality of the profession or organization to which an individual belongs.
• Societal morality is the morality of society as a whole.
• In a pluralistic society, no single vision of morality prevails, making ethical decision making challenging.
• Moral reasoning is a term used to describe the process of reflecting on ethical issues.
• Moral reasoning is about norms and values, ideas of right and wrong, and how practitioners make decisions in professional work.
• Moral reasoning is a reflective process that leads to ethically supported actions.
• Moral distress is an ethical problem that occurs when practitioners know the right thing to do but cannot achieve it because of external barriers or uncertainty about the outcome.
• Issues that cause moral distress in occupational therapy practice with high frequency include those surrounding reimbursement, maintaining confidentiality, agreeing on goal setting, and balancing institutional needs versus what is best for the client.
• Health care professionals hold a unique societal role because the public expects them to uphold particular virtues.
• Virtues are dispositions of character and conduct that motivate and enable practitioners to provide good care.
• Deontology is a duty-based moral theory that is based primarily on the work of Immanuel Kant.
• Utilitarianism, derived from the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, is concerned with actions that maximize good consequences and minimize bad consequences.
• Veracity refers to telling the truth.
• This process provides a structure for practitioners to give due consideration to issues, reflect on them, formulate possible alternatives, and make thoughtful choices.
• These virtues include the virtues of integrity, benevolence, competence, kindness, trustworthiness, fairness, conscientiousness, caring, and compassion.
• Moral distress results from the conflict of knowing the right thing to do, but not being able to achieve it.
• Justice refers to equal treatment.
• The ethical decision-making process guides client-centered care with an emphasis on moral conduct.
• Fidelity means being faithful to one’s promises or commitments.
• Beneficence refers to actions done on or for the benefit of others.
• Ethical dilemmas are more complex problems as they often pit values and cherished moral principles against each other.
• In deontology, moral rules are universal and never to be broken; consequently, doing one’s duty is considered primary, regardless of the consequences.
• Procedural justice is often used to reflect impartial decision-making procedures.
• Ethical theories are well-developed, systematic frameworks of rules and principles.
• The ethical decision-making process aids the occupational therapy practitioner in reasoning through a problem in a structured and systematic way.
• Autonomy is the ability to act freely and independently on one’s own decisions.
• Care enhances comfort and recovery and is an essential feature of professional practice.