"First ensure no regret": a decision-theoretic approach to informed consent in clinical practice

Decision theorists recognise that information is valuable only insofar as it has the potential to change a decision. This means that since acquiring more information is time-consuming and sometimes expensive, judgements need to be made about what information is most valuable to acquire, and whether...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ghinea, Narcyz (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2025
In: Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2025, Volume: 51, Issue: 11, Pages: 789-790
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Decision theorists recognise that information is valuable only insofar as it has the potential to change a decision. This means that since acquiring more information is time-consuming and sometimes expensive, judgements need to be made about what information is most valuable to acquire, and whether it is worth acquiring at all. In this article I apply this idea to informed consent and argue that the most valuable information relates not to what the best treatment option may be but to possible futures a patient may regret. I conclude by proposing a regret-minimisation framework for informed consent that I contend better captures the true nature of shared decision making than existing formulations.
ISSN:1473-4257
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1136/jme-2023-109087