TY - JOUR
T1 - The moral nature of patient-centeredness
T2 - Is it "just the right thing to do"?
AU - Duggan, Patrick S.
AU - Geller, Gail
AU - Cooper, Lisa A.
AU - Beach, Mary Catherine
N1 - Funding Information:
Dr. Beach is a recipient of a K-08 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and a Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Scholar.
PY - 2006/8
Y1 - 2006/8
N2 - Objective: Patient-centeredness is regarded as an important feature of high quality patient care, but little effort has been devoted to grounding patient-centeredness as an explicitly moral concept. We sought to describe the moral commitments that underlie patient-centered care. Methods: We analyzed the key ideas that are commonly described in the literature on patient-centeredness in the context of three major schools of ethical thought. Results: Consequentialist moral theories focus on the positive outcomes of providing patient-centered care. Deontological theories emphasize how patient-centered care reflects the ethical norms inherent in medicine, such as respect for persons and shared decision-making. Virtue-based theories highlight the importance of developing patient-centered attitudes and traits, which in turn influence physicians' behaviors toward their patients. Conclusion: Different ethical theories concentrate on different features of patient-centered care, but all can agree that patient-centeredness is morally valuable. Practice implications: In order to sustain patient-centeredness as a moral concept, practitioners and students ought to examine these ideas to determine what their own personal reasons are for or against adopting a patient-centered approach.
AB - Objective: Patient-centeredness is regarded as an important feature of high quality patient care, but little effort has been devoted to grounding patient-centeredness as an explicitly moral concept. We sought to describe the moral commitments that underlie patient-centered care. Methods: We analyzed the key ideas that are commonly described in the literature on patient-centeredness in the context of three major schools of ethical thought. Results: Consequentialist moral theories focus on the positive outcomes of providing patient-centered care. Deontological theories emphasize how patient-centered care reflects the ethical norms inherent in medicine, such as respect for persons and shared decision-making. Virtue-based theories highlight the importance of developing patient-centered attitudes and traits, which in turn influence physicians' behaviors toward their patients. Conclusion: Different ethical theories concentrate on different features of patient-centered care, but all can agree that patient-centeredness is morally valuable. Practice implications: In order to sustain patient-centeredness as a moral concept, practitioners and students ought to examine these ideas to determine what their own personal reasons are for or against adopting a patient-centered approach.
KW - Ethics
KW - Patient-centeredness
KW - Physician-patient interaction
KW - Shared decision-making
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U2 - 10.1016/j.pec.2005.08.001
DO - 10.1016/j.pec.2005.08.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 16356677
AN - SCOPUS:33745646558
SN - 0738-3991
VL - 62
SP - 271
EP - 276
JO - Patient Education and Counseling
JF - Patient Education and Counseling
IS - 2
ER -