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Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease

Advances in genetic diagnostics lead to more patients being diagnosed with hereditary conditions. These findings are often relevant to patients’ relatives. For example, the success of targeted cancer prevention is dependent on effective disclosure to relatives at risk. Without clear information, ind...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Grill, Kalle, Rosén, Anna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8639958/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33246998
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-106236
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author Grill, Kalle
Rosén, Anna
author_facet Grill, Kalle
Rosén, Anna
author_sort Grill, Kalle
collection PubMed
description Advances in genetic diagnostics lead to more patients being diagnosed with hereditary conditions. These findings are often relevant to patients’ relatives. For example, the success of targeted cancer prevention is dependent on effective disclosure to relatives at risk. Without clear information, individuals cannot take advantage of predictive testing and preventive measures. Against this background, we argue that healthcare professionals have a duty to make actionable genetic information available to their patients’ at-risk relatives. We do not try to settle the difficult question of how this duty should be balanced against other duties, such as the duty of confidentiality and a possible duty not to know one’s genetic predisposition. Instead, we argue for the importance of recognising a general responsibility towards at-risk relatives, to be discharged as well as possible within the limits set by conflicting duties and practical considerations. According to a traditional and still dominant perspective, it is the patient’s duty to inform his or her relatives, while healthcare professionals are only obliged to support their patients in discharging this duty. We argue that this perspective is a mistake and an anomaly. Healthcare professionals do not have a duty to ensure that their patients promote the health of third parties. It is often effective and desirable to engage patients in disseminating information to their relatives. However, healthcare professionals should not thereby deflect their own moral responsibility.
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spelling pubmed-86399582021-12-15 Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease Grill, Kalle Rosén, Anna J Med Ethics Original Research Advances in genetic diagnostics lead to more patients being diagnosed with hereditary conditions. These findings are often relevant to patients’ relatives. For example, the success of targeted cancer prevention is dependent on effective disclosure to relatives at risk. Without clear information, individuals cannot take advantage of predictive testing and preventive measures. Against this background, we argue that healthcare professionals have a duty to make actionable genetic information available to their patients’ at-risk relatives. We do not try to settle the difficult question of how this duty should be balanced against other duties, such as the duty of confidentiality and a possible duty not to know one’s genetic predisposition. Instead, we argue for the importance of recognising a general responsibility towards at-risk relatives, to be discharged as well as possible within the limits set by conflicting duties and practical considerations. According to a traditional and still dominant perspective, it is the patient’s duty to inform his or her relatives, while healthcare professionals are only obliged to support their patients in discharging this duty. We argue that this perspective is a mistake and an anomaly. Healthcare professionals do not have a duty to ensure that their patients promote the health of third parties. It is often effective and desirable to engage patients in disseminating information to their relatives. However, healthcare professionals should not thereby deflect their own moral responsibility. BMJ Publishing Group 2021-12 2020-11-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8639958/ /pubmed/33246998 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-106236 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Research
Grill, Kalle
Rosén, Anna
Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease
title Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease
title_full Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease
title_fullStr Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease
title_full_unstemmed Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease
title_short Healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease
title_sort healthcare professionals’ responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8639958/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33246998
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-106236
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