Hofling

Hofling

To discover whether nurses would comply with an instruction which would involve them having to infringe both hospital regulations and medical ethics
The capsules were in face placebos consisting of glucose, but the containers were labelled 5mg capsules of Astroten
While the nurse was on duty a Dr Smith (confederate) instructed the nurse by telephone to give 20mg of Astroten to his patient
1. Mr Jones, as he was in a desperate hurry and the patient needed the capsules
The label indicated that the normal dose is 5mg with a maximum daily dose of 10 mg
21 out of 22 nurses obeyed without hesitation
When questioned later 11 said that they had not noticed the dosage discrepency
Although the nurses believed that they would not obey a doctor unquestioningly if they were ordered to do something that breached regulations or...
1. endangered patients, it appeared that in fact they did just that
Identical boxes of capsules were placed in 22 wards of both public private psychiatric hospitals in the USA

Resource summary

	Created by pmfisher1996 over 11 years ago