Steerling Emilie, Houston Rebecca, Gietzen Luke J, Ogilvie Sarah J, de Ruiter Hans-Peter, Nygren Jens M
School of Health and Welfare, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden.
College of Allied Health and Nursing, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN, United States.
Interact J Med Res. 2022 Aug 15;11(2):e38745. doi: 10.2196/38745.
Given the increased use of technology in health care, both in extent and application, the importance of understanding the ethical implications of new health technologies increases. Profound insight into the possible ethical implications of new health technologies enhances the research and development of such technologies and the likelihood of eventual successful implementation in clinical practice.
This study aimed to gain an understanding of how and if researchers focused on health technologies describe the actual or possible ethical aspects of their research findings.
An established framework for scoping reviews was used to guide the methodology. Studies published in PubMed over the last 10 years were included if they study or refer to ethics in relation to health technology as defined by established frameworks. In total, 14,532 articles were screened, 692 were retained for full-text evaluation, and 227 were included for data extraction.
In total, 250 (80.9%, N=309) studies were conducted in North America and Europe; literature review studies were dominant. Most studies (52.9%, 120/227) had no direct reference to any of the 4 basic ethical principles: beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. In cases where studies referenced ethical theory, consequentialism dominated.
When research about technology and ethics is published, the predominant focus is on its intent rather than its actual effect on patients. This lack of insight is problematic considering the vast advancement of technology in which ethics cannot keep up with understanding and offer insights on addressing ethical issues. This finding has implications for practice, research, and education.
鉴于技术在医疗保健领域的使用在范围和应用上都有所增加，理解新的健康技术的伦理影响变得越发重要。深入洞察新的健康技术可能产生的伦理影响，有助于此类技术的研发，并提高其最终成功应用于临床实践的可能性。
本研究旨在了解专注于健康技术的研究人员如何以及是否描述其研究结果的实际或可能的伦理方面。
采用一个既定的范围综述框架来指导研究方法。纳入过去10年在PubMed上发表的研究，如果这些研究按照既定框架研究或提及与健康技术相关的伦理问题。总共筛选了14532篇文章，保留692篇进行全文评估，纳入227篇进行数据提取。
总共有250项研究（80.9%，N = 309）在北美和欧洲进行；文献综述研究占主导。大多数研究（52.9%，120/227）没有直接提及四项基本伦理原则中的任何一项：有益、无害、自主和公正。在提及伦理理论的研究中，结果论占主导。
当发表关于技术与伦理的研究时，主要关注点在于其意图而非对患者的实际影响。考虑到技术的巨大进步，而伦理在理解和提供解决伦理问题的见解方面无法跟上，这种缺乏洞察力的情况是有问题的。这一发现对实践、研究和教育都有影响。
