The Ethical Obligation to Treat Infectious Patients: A Systematic Review of Reasons.
Clin Infect Dis
; 79(2): 339-347, 2024 Aug 16.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39149937
ABSTRACT
During pandemics, healthcare providers struggle with balancing obligations to self, family, and patients. While HIV/AIDS seemed to settle this issue, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rekindled debates regarding treatment refusal. We searched MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL Complete, and Web of Science using terms including obligation, refusal, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, and pandemics. After duplicate removal and dual, independent screening, we analyzed 156 articles for quality, ethical position, reasons, and concepts. Diseases in our sample included HIV/AIDS (72.2%), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (10.2%), COVID-19 (10.2%), Ebola (7.0%), and influenza (7.0%). Most articles (81.9%, n = 128) indicated an obligation to treat. COVID-19 had the highest number of papers indicating ethical acceptability of refusal (60%, P < .001), while HIV had the least (13.3%, P = .026). Several reason domains were significantly different during COVID-19, including unreasonable risks to self/family (26.7%, P < .001) and labor rights/workers' protection (40%, P < .001). A surge in ethics literature during COVID-19 has advocated for permissibility of treatment refusal. Balancing healthcare provision with workforce protection is crucial in effectively responding to a global pandemic.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article