Religious determination of bioethical beliefs of health workers

The article presents the results are set forth regarding the research of moral-ethical and bioethical representations of the believers and non-believers among the health workers to assess the influence of the religiosity factor upon the formation of bioethical type of worldview. The conducted comparative analysis of moral-ethical characteristics of health workers with religious (43.3%) and non-religious (56.7%) type of worldview revealed the statistically significant divergence in 13-15 variables reflecting the moral-ethical personal states of the health workers. The results of the analysis allowed to identify differences in the attitude of the believers and non-believers to all seven analysed biomedical technologies: in vitro fertilization, surrogate maternity, human cloning, organs transplant, foetal stem cell transplantation, artificial termination of pregnancy and euthanasia. The attitude to the biomedical technologies on part of the religious health workers is based on the moral grounds, is filled with the moral sense and relates to the moral obligations. The phenomenon of religiosity contributes to a deeper understanding by the health workers of the meaning conveyed by the bioethical dilemmas and bioethically responsible attitude towards medical interventions into the life and death of a human being. The received results allow to ascertain that religiosity, by facilitating the establishment of the bioethical worldviews of the health workers and formation on its basis of the ethical competency, appears to be an important factor of the ethical regulation of the practice related to application of biomedical technologies under the conditions of a new model of moral relations in medicine.

religiosity, bioethical beliefs, biomedical technologies, health workers