Code of ethics for physical and occupational therapists reveals contents related to professional autonomy

Abstract

Despite the existence of a recent code of ethics, a study revealing the content inside the previous one could contribute for the better comprehension of the physical therapist's social function. Therefore, the present study verified proportions of deontological and bioethical approaches that are present in this code identifying the predominance of contents to support the interpretation of the document. Textual and interpretative analyses were used to compare the code with two other sets of documents. The first set showed deontological approaches, while the second one presented bioethical ones. Textual units were identified for all documents and classified by bioethical (principles) and/or deontological (technique and virtue) approaches. For the code of ethics and each set of documents, 54.4, 55.7 and 57.7% of deontological contents were identified. The textual units classified in the code of ethics as professional or client autonomy had ratio of 2.15:1 (professional:client). The ratio previously presented was lower than the one observed in the set of documents with deontological approach (5.07:1 - professional:client) and it was the opposite for the documents regarding the bioethical approach (1.32:1 - client:professional). It was concluded that inside the codes of ethics and the set of deontological information there are corporate and law conceptions, resulting in the majority of contents reveling professional autonomy. This characteristic was different from the set of documents presenting the bioethical approach, in which there was more content related to client autonomy.