Ethics Issues and Decision Making in Occupational Therapy, 2nd Edition

Course overview

The purpose of this basic level course is to provide OTs and OTAs with an introduction to the study of ethical behavior and action as it is applied to occupational therapy practice, education, and research. It is designed to facilitate learning and using the ethical principles required to foster moral reasoning and to practice ethical decision making in occupational therapy. Specific objectives include defining terms used in discussing ethics, describing the principles and values of ethics organized into the Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics, relating occupational therapy ethics to stakeholders in society, explaining a decision-making process for analyzing ethics issues, and discussing sample case studies. The case studies in this course are based on issues brought to the attention of the AOTA Ethics Commission (EC) members. All names and situations used in the case studies have been changed to avoid identifying any person or facility.