ArticleBMC medical ethics2017
Staff's normative attitudes towards coercion: the role of moral doubt and professional context-a cross-sectional survey study.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Systematic literature review of the use of Staff Attitudes to Coercion Scale (SACS).Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Measurement Properties of the Staff Attitude to Coercion Scale: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Attitudes of psychiatric staff toward coercion: nationwide AttCo study.BJPsych open · 2025Article
- Attitudes Toward Coercion Among Mental Healthcare Workers in Italy: A Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Coercion in psychiatry: psychometric validation of the Portuguese Staff Attitudes to Coercion Scale (SACS).Discover mental health · 2024Article
- A Scoping Review on Staff Attitudes towards the Use of Coercion in Mental Healthcare.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Experience of violence and attitudes of staff members towards coercion in psychiatric settings: observational study.BJPsych open · 2024Article
- Ethical Issues in Clinical Decision-Making about Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Two years of ethics reflection groups about coercion in psychiatry. Measuring variation within employees' normative attitudes, user involvement and the handling of disagreement.BMC medical ethics · 2023Article
- Review
- Meaning Analysis and Alienation: A Method of Immanent Critique in Acute Psychiatry.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Crisis within a crisis - the fragility of acute psychiatric care delivery.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2022Article
- How may cultural and political ideals cause moral distress in acute psychiatry? A qualitative study.BMC psychiatry · 2022Article
- Developing Conflict Resolution Strategies and Building Resilient Midwifery Students: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Research Study.JMIR research protocols · 2022Article
- Development of the Japanese version of Staff Attitude to Coercion Scale.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- The Role of Implicit and Explicit Staff Attitudes in the Use of Coercive Measures in Psychiatry.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Trends in the use of coercive measures in Finnish psychiatric hospitals: a register analysis of the past two decades.BMC psychiatry · 2019Article
- An Instrument to Measure Mental Health Professionals' Beliefs and Attitudes towards Service Users' Rights.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Comparing Attitudes to Containment Measures of Patients, Health Care Professionals and Next of Kin.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe use of coercion is morally problematic and requires an ongoing critical reflection. We wondered if not knowing or being uncertain whether coercion is morally right or justified (i.e. experiencing moral doubt) is related to professionals' normative attitudes regarding the use of coercion.
methodsThis paper describes an explorative statistical analysis based on a cross-sectional survey across seven wards in three Norwegian mental health care institutions.
resultsDescriptive analyses showed that in general the 379 respondents a) were not so sure whether coercion should be seen as offending, b) agreed with the viewpoint that coercion is needed for care and security, and c) slightly disagreed that coercion could be seen as treatment. Staff did not report high rates of moral doubt related to the use of coercion, although most of them agreed there will never be a single answer to the question 'What is the right thing to do?'. Bivariate analyses showed that the more they experienced general moral doubt and relative doubt, the more one thought that coercion is offending. Especially psychologists were critical towards coercion. We found significant differences among ward types. Respondents with decisional responsibility for coercion and leadership responsibility saw coercion less as treatment. Frequent experience with coercion was related to seeing coercion more as care and security.
conclusionsThis study showed that experiencing moral doubt is related to some one's normative attitude towards coercion. Future research could investigate whether moral case deliberation increases professionals' experience of moral doubt and whether this will evoke more critical thinking and increase staff's curiosity for alternatives to coercion.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.