The relationship between social capital and altruism and the ethical attitudes of physicians

Social capital and altruism are the most effective factors on the cultural development of a society and can play an important role in promoting ethics within the health care system. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between social capital and altruism and the ethical attitudes of physicians. This correlational and descriptive study was performed on 322 doctors working in medical centers in west Azerbaijan during 2013 who were selected by cluster-random sampling. Onyx and Bullen social capital scale، Carlo et al. altruism scale and Karamporian et al. ethics questionnaire were used to collect data. The results of this study indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between the ethical attitudes of physicians and altruism (R = 0. 238)، the structure subscale (R = 0. 489)، cognition subscale (R = 0. 581) and relationship subscale (R = 0. 554) of social capital. The significance level was set at p < 0. 05 in this study. The multi-variable correlation coefficient and enter method indicated that social capital subscales can influence the ethical attitudes of physicians (0. 457). The results showed that there was a correlation between social capital and altruism and ethical attitudes in the medical profession. Thus، it seems that promoting social capital and altruism can positively influence individuals’ ethical attitudes in the medical profession.