Ethical Meaning-Making in Faith-Based Decisions Among Muslim Healthcare Professionals
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Abstract
Ethical decision-making in healthcare is a critical area of study that intersects with personal values, professional obligations, and cultural contexts. Within this field, the moral experiences of Muslim healthcare professionals remain underexplored, particularly when religious beliefs conflict with institutional expectations. What remains unknown is how these professionals internally navigate such dilemmas and what meaning they assign to their experiences. This study adopts an interpretative phenomenological approach to examine how Muslim healthcare professionals make sense of ethical conflicts involving their faith and clinical responsibilities. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with eight participants and analyzed thematically using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The results revealed four core themes: internal moral conflict, negotiation of religious identity, reliance on spiritual practices, and the use of faith as a moral compass. These findings show that participants engage in a reflective, spiritually grounded process of ethical reasoning that extends beyond procedural norms. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of religiously informed moral agency in healthcare and suggests the need for more inclusive ethical frameworks that accommodate the lived realities of faith-based practitioners. However, this study has certain limitations, including the relatively small sample size and its focus on a single religious and cultural group, which may limit the generalizability of findings to broader healthcare contexts. Future research could expand participant diversity and explore comparative perspectives across faith traditions. Despite these limitations, the study offers practical implications: healthcare institutions and policymakers should consider integrating faith-sensitive approaches into ethics training and clinical guidelines to support Muslim practitioners and enhance culturally competent care.
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