Informed consent in societies with different ethos of ‘selfhood’

Cross-Cultural Variations in the Sick Role Blind enforcement of the Western view on self-mastery is opposed to what has been observed as the societal view of the sick role or illness behaviour. Sigerist observed that societies tend to assign a specific role or social status to ‘sick’ people.14 Parso...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sultan Qaboos University medical journal 2019-02, Vol.19 (1), p.1-3
Main Authors: al-Sadun, Muna, al-Adawi, Samir
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bioethics
Culture
Encyclopedias
Female
Humans
Informed Consent
Medicine
Oman
Patients
Philosophy
Societies
Society
أخلاقيات الطب
الأخطاء الطبية
الذات
المجتمع
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Summary:Cross-Cultural Variations in the Sick Role Blind enforcement of the Western view on self-mastery is opposed to what has been observed as the societal view of the sick role or illness behaviour. Sigerist observed that societies tend to assign a specific role or social status to ‘sick’ people.14 Parsons indicated that being sick entails that the afflicted person enter a new role.15 Accordingly, the sick person is not only marked by a physical ailment, but acquires a new social role that is intimately tied to his/her state of health. One of the main aspects of the sick person’s new role is to be alleviated from their assigned premorbid role since his/her well-being has been compromised. Thus, a sick person is deemed incapable of taking care of themselves and as a result, the family ‘takes over’ the responsibility of their welfare.16 In most cases, the family willingly commits to take responsibility for the afflicted individual even if this would entail temporarily seizing his/her personal autonomy. These studies suggest that some communities around the world are likely to revoke the personal autonomy of the sick.14–16 Such societal practices would invariably be at odds with Western bioethics stance on self-mastery.
ISSN:2075-051X
2075-0528
DOI:10.18295/squmj.2019.19.01.001