Introduction:

Ethics committees are created because of the deliberations that emanate from the application of bioethics to the moral conflicts that arise from healthcare and the advances in science. They are independent multidisciplinary groups of healthcare professionals, professionals of other areas of humanities and community members.

Objective:

To characterize the bioethics committees that currently exists in Paraguay.

Methodology:

This is a cross sectional descriptive study. An electronic survey was sent to 272 public and private institutions that were identified as having research activities in health sciences, activities in healthcare bioethics, healthcare professional associations and the National Bioethics Committees.

Results:

The response rate was 48%. Twenty-eight bioethics committees were reported; of these, 25 were reported as active (20 committees of research ethics, 3 committees of healthcare ethics, 1 committee belonging to a professional union and 1 national committee of bioethics).

Conclusion:

This study is the first extensive report about the quantity, typification and characteristics of bioethics committees in Paraguay. These results reveal the urgent need to create awareness, sensibilization and skills training about the importance of bioethics committees in educational and health institutions. We should also strengthen the current active committees by working together in these activities.

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