Luppo Kuillman

Facilitating and motivating factors for reporting reprehensible conduct 91 4 “I think it’s important to be alert to the ethical implications of the medical treatment I provide;” and 3) “I think it’s important for the organization where I work to focus explicit attention on the medical and ethical aspects of care.” A fourth question was added as well: “What is your opinion about applying ethical principles to medical care?” This question was measured with a semantic differential scale ranging from 0 (“completely useless”) to 100 (“very meaningful”). In order to combine the Likert-type items with the semantic differential scale questions, the first three items were also converted along a continuum ranging from 0 to 100. Results of Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation demonstrated that the EAS construct was unidimensional, with factor loadings of 0.74, 0.79, 0.70, and 0.75, respectively. Results of reliability analysis indicated an acceptable level of internal consistency, as reflected by a Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.72, with a mean inter-item correlation coefficient (MIIC) of 0.40. Higher scores on the EAS reflect a higher propensity to advocate the importance of ethics in care. Behavioral control targeted at preventing harm (BCPH) We measured behavioral control according to the following five items, which tapped the extent to which health practitioners were confident in their skills and alertness to prevent harm to the patient: 1) “I always feel responsible for proper patient care, even if the resources are insufficient;” 2) “My skill in assessing the needs of the patient always helps me in my work;” 3) “I can always properly assess whether and when a patient should be told the truth;” 4) “I can easily sense when a patient is not receiving proper care;” and 5) “In patient care, I am always aware of the balance between performing the task well and the risk of harm to the patient.” These items were answered along a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation demonstrated that the BCPH scale was unidimensional, with factor loadings ranging from 0.54 to 0.83. The Cronbach’s alpha score for the scale was 0.72, with a MIIC value of 0.37. Higher scores reflected greater perceived behavioral control targeted at preventing harm. Statistical analysis Bivariate analysis For categorical variables, we used the chi-squared test (Fisher’s exact tests for 2 × 2 contingency tables) and the difference between proportions test (Newcombe & Altman, 2000). For continuous variables, we used the Student’s t test for independent