2022 Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 49-59
There is a momentum for clinical ethics committees or hospital ethics committees (HECs) and research ethics committees (RECs) in medical institutions in Japan to become independent. We conducted a survey of the actual status of HECs by a questionnaire survey and an analysis of committee rules from July to September 2020. The survey covered 447 hospitals, including hospitals with cancer treatment centers. The questionnaire collection rate was 35.8％ and the rule collection rate was 24.4％. The most important findings of the survey were as follows. While 96 (67.1％) of the respondents to the questionnaire survey said their committees were “established as specialized committees to deal with clinical ethics issues”, an analysis of the 109 regulations collected showed that 46 (42.2％) committees were recognized as HECs under the regulations. This means there is a gap between the percentage of respondents who recognize their own committees as HECs and the percentage of HECs that the author can classify as HECs judging from the regulations. Therefore, the results of the questionnaire survey, including all the responses and the responses of the committees recognized as HECs under the regulations, are written side by side to focus on the actual situation of HECs. In addition, the contents and items in the regulations confirming the 46 committees as HECs were reviewed. Finally, the paper discusses the necessity of HEC-focused surveys and the actual status of HECs in Japan.
