Opinions of the Healthcare Providers Regarding a Medically Oriented Sri Lankan Teledrama

Introduction: A considerable portion of the ethics related to the medical curriculum is taught to the students by a department of forensic medicine. Medical professionals generally depict good ethical behavior while any deviations from the ethical practices negatively affect the intended health care. Ethical behaviour in the professional setting cannot be compromised by healthcare providers as it is a cornerstone of providing the best possible health care. “Television reality’ is a term that needs to be explored by medical professionals once the health care sector is being portrayed in it.

Objectives: The primary goal of this study was to investigate how medical professionals perceive their respective characters when they are portrayed through the eyes of others via a teledrama. Other goals included determining how different strata of health professionals felt about the teledrama that was aired, what they thought about health professionals' ethical behaviour, and whether health professionals liked how they were portrayed in the drama.

Methods: The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study completed at a tertiary care hospital. The questionnaire was pretested and designed to be a self-administered questionnaire comprised of multiple-choice questions. The participants were allowed to watch an episode of the teledrama before being asked to complete a questionnaire. The findings were analyzed using the SPSS version 23. A p-value ≤ 0.05 was considered as significant.

Results: 401 people took part in total (doctors: nurses: other = 109:197:95). The male-to-female ratio was 1:3 (males, n = 113 (28.2%) and females n=288 (71.8%). Only 6.7% (n=27) of participants thought the teledrama was beneficial to society, while the majority thought the opposite. Approximately two-thirds of the participants (n= 268) expressed dissatisfaction with the drama. According to 56.1% (n=225) of the participants, the producer intended to humiliate the medical profession. 34.7 % of participants (n=139) thought the teledrama should be banned.

Conclusion: It is one of the prime duties of health professionals to safeguard the medical profession. At the same time the freedom of the producers of teledramas should equally be respected. Anyhow the overall findings were consistent with the fact that a clear majority of participants are hesitant to continue watching such programmes because they negatively portray professionals and the health profession. As a result, before approving the telecast, a scrutinizing mechanism should be established through a responsible body of the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka.