Counseling Ethics: The Case of Sexuality Information

Abstract

Objective: The study aimed to identify Colombian adults' positions in cases in which a counsellor can and should not do so in a situation where parents who are uncomfortable with all issues related to sexuality ask their daughter's school counsellor to help answer her questions about these topics.

Materials and methods: A convenience sample of 180 adults, including 19 school counsellors, was presented with a set of 24 vignettes created by orthogonally crossing three factors: (a) the context of the request (e.g., parents ask the educator to limit sexual information to purely biological aspects), (b) whether the adolescent requests additional information, and (c) the type of information provided by the educator (e.g., comprehensive information, including abortion).

Results: A cluster analysis of participants' appropriateness judgments regarding counsellor's behavior revealed four qualitatively different positions: Depends on adolescent's request (5%), Completeness of information (26%), Biological information is insufficient (31%), and at educator's discretion (16%). In addition, 18% (most religious) expressed no discernible position.

Conclusion: The majority of participants (57%) thus expressed the view that the most appropriate behavior on the part of the counselor was to provide the most comprehensive information possible, and certainly not to focus solely on the biological aspects of sex education during counseling. This view was largely independent of contextual elements such as the limits to communication set by the parents or even the limits to communication set by the adolescent.

Keywords: Colombia; Counseling; Ethics; Sexuality Information.

Figure 1:

Decrease in the average distance to the centroid as a function of the number of clusters

Figure 2:

Mean rating observed for three of the five cluster: Depends on the adolescent request (top row), Completeness of information (middle row), and Biological information is insufficient (bottom row). Mean ratings are on the vertical axis. The educator’s behaviors are on the horizontal axis. Each curve corresponds to a context. Each panel correspond to one level of the adolescent’s request.