Moral Judgment as a Predictor of Clinical Performance.

Over a 4-year period moral reasoning and performance data were studied on 350 resident pediatricians, internists, and practitioners of family medicine from seven different institutions. Clinical performance was measured by faculty ratings, and integrity (moral reasoning) was measured by Kohlberg's Standard of Moral Judgement Interview and Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). Findings of the resident pediatricians showed that there was a significant difference between American and foreign residents, and that there was a high correlation between performance ratings and integrity scores. The residents in internal and family medicine were a much smaller group and none of the correlations were statistically significant. Limitations of the study included the nature of judging values, sampling procedures, and the use of adjusted performance ratings. It was concluded that while the study indicated a relationship exists between integrity and clinical performance, it represented indirect evidence. Extensive tables analyzing the findings are appended. (PHR)