ABSTRACT

Dual liability of health professionals occurs in situations in which declaration of forensic case is required. Medical doctors may experience conflicts between legislation and ethical principles. In this study, we aimed to explore the level of knowledge about forensic case declaration of medical doctors working at Dokuz Eylul University School of Medicine. Also, we aimed to determine their attitudes and behaviors towards the situations in which ethical principles and legislation conflict is present to their knowledge.

We used a 22-item questionnaire including items to evaluate the definition of a forensic case, liability of declaration of forensic case, knowledge about legislation and ethical principles, attitudes and behaviour towards the conflicting situations. In total, 106 medical doctors were evaluated.

Sixty-two percent of medical doctors follow legislation and 35% of them follow ethical principles when they face with conflicting situations.

We discussed situations in which medical and ethical principles contradict and agree with legislation. We believe that such discussion would be helpful to attitude changes in conflicting situations.

Keywords: Forensic Science, Forensic Case, Declaration of Forensic Case, Dual Liability, Medical Ethics.