Interdisciplinary team member perceptions of ethical issues in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation is one of the most challenging and complex aspects of rehabilitation clinically, administratively, and ethically. The prevailing standard of care in this area emphasizes the importance of treatment within an interdisciplinary team model. Empirical literature related to both individual clinician and team aspects of the ethical issues involved in head injury rehabilitation has been lacking. This study utilized a survey approach to describe the perceptions of interdisciplinary team members in TBI rehabilitation at various care-levels in rehabilitation regarding ethical issues in their practice. A sample of 84 interdisciplinary team members responded to a new survey instrument, the Ethical Urgency Survey (EUS), describing the frequency of issues, their importance, and the perceived level of distress with ethical dilemmas in five domains of TBI practice: legal, rehabilitation treatment, family/social, medical treatment, and research issues. Additionally, it was found that there were significant differences between how members of different disciplinary groups viewed these ethical issues.