Healthcare practitioners' personal and professional values.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Ethics
• Medical Education
• Health Professions Research

Background:

• Personal and professional values significantly influence healthcare practitioners' clinical decisions.
• Understanding these values is crucial for improving patient-centered decision-making by individuals and teams.
• Existing research lacks a unified framework for healthcare practitioner values.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify personal and professional values of healthcare practitioners.
• To integrate these values into a comprehensive framework using Schwartz's values model.
• To provide a tool for assessing values and improving patient-centered care.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search across Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and ERIC databases.
• Extraction and synthesis of values from included articles on doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals.
• Development of a unified values framework based on Schwartz's model.

Main Results:

• Identified 128 distinct values from 50 articles.
• Developed a framework encompassing 11 broad healthcare practitioner values (e.g., altruism, equality, capability, critical-thinking).
• Altruism, equality, and capability emerged as the most prominent values.

Conclusions:

• A comprehensive framework for healthcare practitioner values has been established.
• This framework can enhance practitioners' self-awareness, leading to more patient-centered decisions.
• The framework supports interprofessional teamwork, shared education, and improved decision-making across healthcare professions.