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Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services

BACKGROUND: Commercial genetic testing offered over the internet, known as direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT), currently is under ethical attack. A common critique aims at the limited validation of the tests as well as the risk of psycho-social stress or adaption of incorrect behavior by us...

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Autores principales: Schaper, Manuel, Schicktanz, Silke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5989449/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29871685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0292-3
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author Schaper, Manuel
Schicktanz, Silke
author_facet Schaper, Manuel
Schicktanz, Silke
author_sort Schaper, Manuel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Commercial genetic testing offered over the internet, known as direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT), currently is under ethical attack. A common critique aims at the limited validation of the tests as well as the risk of psycho-social stress or adaption of incorrect behavior by users triggered by misleading health information. Here, we examine in detail the specific role of advertising communication of DTC GT companies from a medical ethical perspective. Our argumentative analysis departs from the starting point that DTC GT operates at the intersection of two different contexts: medicine on the one hand and the market on the other. Both fields differ strongly with regard to their standards of communication practices and the underlying normative assumptions regarding autonomy and responsibility. METHODS: Following a short review of the ethical contexts of medical and commercial communication, we provide case examples for persuasive messages of DTC GT websites and briefly analyze their design with a multi-modal approach to illustrate some of their problematic implications. RESULTS: We observe three main aspects in DTC GT advertising communication: (1) the use of material suggesting medical professional legitimacy as a trust-establishing tool, (2) the suggestion of empowerment as a benefit of using DTC GT services and (3) the narrative of responsibility as a persuasive appeal to a moral self-conception. CONCLUSIONS: While strengthening and respecting the autonomy of a patient is the focus in medical communication, specifically genetic counselling, persuasive communication is the normal mode in marketing of consumer goods, presuming an autonomous, rational, independent consumer. This creates tension in the context of DTC GT regarding the expectation and normative assessment of communication strategies. Our analysis can even the ground for a better understanding of ethical problems associated with intersections of medical and commercial communication and point to perspectives of analysis of DTC GT advertising.
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spelling pubmed-59894492018-06-21 Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services Schaper, Manuel Schicktanz, Silke BMC Med Ethics Research Article BACKGROUND: Commercial genetic testing offered over the internet, known as direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT), currently is under ethical attack. A common critique aims at the limited validation of the tests as well as the risk of psycho-social stress or adaption of incorrect behavior by users triggered by misleading health information. Here, we examine in detail the specific role of advertising communication of DTC GT companies from a medical ethical perspective. Our argumentative analysis departs from the starting point that DTC GT operates at the intersection of two different contexts: medicine on the one hand and the market on the other. Both fields differ strongly with regard to their standards of communication practices and the underlying normative assumptions regarding autonomy and responsibility. METHODS: Following a short review of the ethical contexts of medical and commercial communication, we provide case examples for persuasive messages of DTC GT websites and briefly analyze their design with a multi-modal approach to illustrate some of their problematic implications. RESULTS: We observe three main aspects in DTC GT advertising communication: (1) the use of material suggesting medical professional legitimacy as a trust-establishing tool, (2) the suggestion of empowerment as a benefit of using DTC GT services and (3) the narrative of responsibility as a persuasive appeal to a moral self-conception. CONCLUSIONS: While strengthening and respecting the autonomy of a patient is the focus in medical communication, specifically genetic counselling, persuasive communication is the normal mode in marketing of consumer goods, presuming an autonomous, rational, independent consumer. This creates tension in the context of DTC GT regarding the expectation and normative assessment of communication strategies. Our analysis can even the ground for a better understanding of ethical problems associated with intersections of medical and commercial communication and point to perspectives of analysis of DTC GT advertising. BioMed Central 2018-06-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5989449/ /pubmed/29871685 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0292-3 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Schaper, Manuel
Schicktanz, Silke
Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services
title Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services
title_full Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services
title_fullStr Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services
title_full_unstemmed Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services
title_short Medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services
title_sort medicine, market and communication: ethical considerations in regard to persuasive communication in direct-to-consumer genetic testing services
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5989449/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29871685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0292-3
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