Do French lay people and health professionals find it acceptable to breach confidentiality to protect a patient's wife from a sexually transmitted disease?

Journal of Medical Ethics 32 (7):414-419 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Objective: To determine under what conditions lay people and health professionals find it acceptable for a physician to breach confidentiality to protect the wife of a patient with a sexually transmitted disease .Methods: In a study in France, breaching confidentiality in 48 scenarios were accepted by 144 lay people, 10 psychologists and 7 physicians. The scenarios were all possible combinations of five factors: severity of the disease ; time taken to discuss this with ; intent to inform the spouse about the disease ; intent to adopt protective behaviours ; and decision to consult an expert in STDs , 2×2×3×2×2. The importance and interactions of each factor were determined, at the group level, by performing analyses of variance and constructing graphs.Results: The concept of breaching confidentiality to protect a wife from her husband’s STD was favoured much more by lay people and psychologists than by physicians . The patient’s stated intentions to protect his wife and to inform her of the disease had the greatest impact on acceptability. A cluster analysis showed groups of lay participants who found breaching confidentiality “always acceptable” , “depending on the many circumstances” , requiring “consultation with an expert” and “never acceptable ”.Conclusions: Most people in France are influenced by situational factors when deciding if a physician should breach confidentiality to protect the spouse of a patient infected with STD

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Trust, Covert Surveillance and Fiduciary Obligations.Wayne Vaught - 2003 - Philosophy in the Contemporary World 10 (1):87-92.
Lay obligations in professional relations.Martin Benjamin - 1985 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 10 (1):85-103.
The Risks of Absolute Medical Confidentiality.M. A. Crook - 2013 - Science and Engineering Ethics 19 (1):107-122.
Simplified models of the relationship between health and disease.Bjørn Hofmann - 2005 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 26 (5):355-377.
Confidentiality in Prison Health care – A Practical Guide.Bernice Elger & David Shaw - forthcoming - In Bernice Elger, Catherine Ritter & Heino Stöver (eds.), Emerging Issues in Prison Health. Springer.
Medical Futility and the Death of a Child.Nancy S. Jecker - 2011 - Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 8 (2):133-139.
Autonomy and futility.William H. Bruening - 1992 - HEC Forum 4 (5):305-313.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-24

Downloads
26 (#521,908)

6 months
4 (#315,466)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?