Nortje, NicoDe Jongh, Jo-Celene2018-05-172018-05-172016Nortje, N. & de Jongh, J. (2016). Client confidentiality: Perspectives of students in a healthcare training programme. South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, 8(1): 31-34.1999-7639http://dx.doi.org/7196/SAJBL.460http://hdl.handle.net/10566/3686BACKGROUND. Confidentiality is an important ethical principle for all health professionals and also has a legal bearing on duty. One of the most difficult issues health professionals face in their daily fieldwork practice is a conflict between their professional duties, as illustrated in keeping a patient’s medical information confidential, and having empathy with a family member’s need to know. This moral dilemma is difficult for students to circumvent and therefore this paper presents healthcare students’ perspectives of confidentiality. METHODS. We aimed to explore healthcare students’ views and experiences of confidentiality as an ethical principle by adopting a qualitative explorative approach. Purposeful sampling was undertaken where specific individuals with specific experiences were identified. Data were collected by means of written responses from two open-ended questions and analysed thematically. Two themes emerged. CONCLUSION. Confidentiality, as with other ethical principles, is an important obligation of a good client-therapist relationship as identified by students. However, the students’ responses illustrate that it cannot be absolute, and cognisance must be taken as to when it is acceptable, and even desirable, to override confidentiality because of conflicting, greater duties.enThe South African Journal of Bioethics and Law is an Open Access Journal and provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. In accordance with the definition of the Budapest Open Access Initiative all content published by the SAMJ is made free to users without any subscription or other charges. Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of these articles, or use them for any other lawful, non-commercial purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.Client confidentialityEthical principleHealth professionalsMedical informationArticle