Why Bariatric surgery should be given high priority: an argument from law and morality

Responsibility in healthcare across time and agents

It is unclear whether someone's responsibility for developing a disease or maintaining his or her health should affect what healthcare he or she receives. While this dispute continues, we suggest that, if responsibility is to play a role in healthcare, the concept must be rethought in order to reflect the sense in which many health-related behaviours occur repeatedly over time and are the product of more than one agent. Most philosophical accounts of responsibility are synchronic and individualistic; we indicate here what paying more attention to the diachronic and dyadic aspects of responsibility might involve and what implications this could have for assessments of responsibility for health-related behaviour.

Warranting the decision-maker, not the decision: How healthcare practitioners evaluate the legitimacy of patients' unprompted requests for risk-reducing mastectomy

OBJECTIVE

Shared decision-making exists to reconcile healthcare practitioners' responsibilities to respect patients' autonomy whilst ensuring well-made decisions. Patients sometimes make unprompted requests for procedures that carry medical and other risks, such as risk-reducing mastectomy (RRM). Faced with pre-formed decisions into which they have had little input, it is unclear how practitioners can reconcile respecting autonomy with ensuring well-made decisions.

METHODS

Qualitative study of linked patient-practitioner interviews in a breast unit in North-West England. We examined how 10 practitioners addressed 19 patients' unprompted requests for RRM.

RESULTS

Practitioners empathised with patients' distress about cancer risk, regarded RRM as legitimate to help, but were wary of choices made 'emotionally'. Practitioners did not seek to establish whether choices were well-made but, instead, 'warranted' patients by satisfying themselves that patients were 'sensible' and 'informed' decision-makers, and thus their decisions could be trusted. Practitioners provided information, and tested patients' resolve by delaying decisions and presenting 'what if' scenarios depicting failure or harm from RRM.

CONCLUSION

Patients who present emotionally and with resolution can receive RRM without evidence of a well-made decision.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Argumentation theory proposes an ethically robust and clinically practicable approach, whereby practitioners elicit, examine and, where appropriate, challenge arguments underpinning patients' decisions.

Qualitative analysis of how patients decide that they want risk-reducing mastectomy, and the implications for surgeons in responding to emotionally-motivated patient requests

OBJECTIVE

Contemporary approaches to medical decision-making advise that clinicians should respect patients' decisions. However, patients' decisions are often shaped by heuristics, such as being guided by emotion, rather than by objective risk and benefit. Risk-reducing mastectomy (RRM) decisions focus this dilemma sharply. RRM reduces breast cancer (BC) risk, but is invasive and can have iatrogenic consequences. Previous evidence suggests that emotion guides patients' decision-making about RRM. We interviewed patients to better understand how they made decisions about RRM, using findings to consider how clinicians could ethically respond to their decisions.

METHODS

Qualitative face-to-face interviews with 34 patients listed for RRM surgery and two who had decided against RRM.

RESULTS

Patients generally did not use objective risk estimates or, indeed, consider risks and benefits of RRM. Instead emotions guided their decisions: they chose RRM because they feared BC and wanted to do 'all they could' to prevent it. Most therefore perceived RRM to be the 'obvious' option and made the decision easily. However, many recounted extensive post-decisional deliberation, generally directed towards justifying the original decision. A few patients deliberated before the decision because fears of surgery counterbalanced those of BC.

CONCLUSION

Patients seeking RRM were motivated by fear of BC, and the need to avoid potential regret for not doing all they could to prevent it. We suggest that choices such as that for RRM, which are made emotionally, can be respected as autonomous decisions, provided patients have considered risks and benefits. Drawing on psychological theory about how people do make decisions, as well as normative views of how they should, we propose that practitioners can guide consideration of risks and benefits even, where necessary, after patients have opted for surgery. This model of practice could be extended to other medical decisions that are influenced by patients' emotions.

How do women at increased breast cancer risk perceive and decide between risks of cancer and risk-reducing treatments? A synthesis of qualitative research

Objective

Risk‐reducing procedures can be offered to people at increased cancer risk, but many procedures can have iatrogenic effects. People therefore need to weigh risks associated with both cancer and the risk‐reduction procedure in their decisions. By reviewing relevant literature on breast cancer (BC) risk reduction, we aimed to understand how women at relatively high risk of BC perceive their risk and how their risk perceptions influence their decisions about risk reduction.

Methods

Synthesis of 15 qualitative studies obtained from systematic searches of SCOPUS, Web of Knowledge, PsychINFO, and Medline electronic databases (inception‐June 2015).

Results

Women did not think about risk probabilistically. Instead, they allocated themselves to broad risk categories, typically influenced by their own or familial experiences of BC. In deciding about risk‐reduction procedures, some women reported weighing the risks and benefits, but papers did not describe how they did so. For many women, however, an overriding wish to reduce intense worry about BC led them to choose aggressive risk‐reducing procedures without such deliberation.

Conclusions

Reasoning that categorisation is a fundamental aspect of risk perception, we argue that patients can be encouraged to develop more nuanced and accurate categorisations of their own risk through their interactions with clinicians. Empirically‐based ethical reflection is required to determine whether and when it is appropriate to provide risk‐reduction procedures to alleviate worry.

The use of adjustable gastric bands for management of severe and complex obesity

BACKGROUND

Obesity levels in the UK have reached a sustained high and ∼4% of the population would be candidates for bariatric surgery based upon current UK NICE guidelines, which has important implications for Clinical Commissioning Groups.

SOURCES OF DATA

Summary data from Cochrane systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies.

AREAS OF AGREEMENT

Currently, the only treatment that offers significant and durable weight loss for those with severe and complex obesity is surgery. Three operations account for 95% of all bariatric surgery in the UK, but the NHS offers surgery to only a small fraction of those who could benefit. Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (gastric banding) has potentially the lowest risk and up-front costs of the three procedures.

AREAS OF CONTROVERSY

Reliable Level 1 evidence of the relative effectiveness of the operations is lacking.

GROWING POINTS

As a point intervention, weight loss surgery together with the chronic disease management strategy for obesity can prevent significant future disease and mortality, and the NHS should embrace both.

AREAS TIMELY FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH

Better RCT evidence is needed including clinical effectiveness and economic analysis to answer the important question 'which is the best of the three operations most frequently performed?' This review considers the current evidence for gastric banding for the treatment of severe and complex obesity.

Long-Term Outcomes of Obesity Surgery and Implications for Health System Planning

Weight loss surgery is currently the only treatment that offers significant and sustained weight loss for those with severe and complex obesity. Obesity levels have reached a sustained high, whereby several percent of a country's population would qualify for surgery based upon current national guidelines. Worldwide, the provision of surgery is highly variable and to treat all the affected population, it would require at least a 100-fold increase in the provision of services. This has important cost and commissioning implications for health-care planners. Reliable level 1 evidence of the long-term effects of obesity surgery is still lacking, and the long-term complication profiles and re-operation rates unclear, which could have significant impact on health-care systems in the future. The chronic disease management of obesity in a population must be integrated with education and prevention and the brief intervention of weight loss surgery and the management of its sequelae, to prevent significant future morbidity and mortality.