Ethical Foundations of the Accompanying Patient's Role for an Enhanced Patient Experience: A Scoping Review

In recent years, recognizing patients' experiential knowledge to improve the quality of care has resulted in the participation of patient advisors at various levels of healthcare systems. Some who are working at the clinical level are called accompanying patients (AP). A PRISMA-ScR exploratory scoping review of the literature was conducted on articles published from 2005 to 2021. Articles not in English or French and grey literature were excluded. The databases searched included Medline, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The data were organized according to the similarities in the ethical foundations of the included papers. Out of 2095 identified papers, 8 met inclusion criteria. Terms used to describe APs included peer support, resource parent, and peer health mediator. The clinical settings included psychiatry/mental health and neonatology. APs, patients, healthcare professionals, managers and policy makers were included in the studies. Three personal ethical foundations describing the foundations of the AP role were found: resilience, listening skills and altruism. The ethical foundations of this role also addressed interpersonal and interprofessional relationships with other actors in the healthcare system. The literature on the ethical foundations of APs is sparse, with heterogeneous methodologies. Further studies mobilizing well-defined methodologies would further validate the current results and deepen our understanding of the ethical foundations of the AP role.

Nomenclature of real patients in health professional education by role and engagement: a narrative literature review

RESEARCH PROBLEM

Real patients living with a disease and engaged in the education of healthcare professionals are referred to by different terms. To address this, A.Towle proposed a draft taxonomy.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective is to extract from the literature the definitions given for the following terms: (1) patient educator, (2) patient instructor, (3) patient mentor, (4) partner patient, (5) patient teacher, (6) Volunteer Patient in order to clearly identify their roles and level of engagement.

METHODS

The literature search was carried out in Medline, CINAHL, PsychInfo and Eric by adding medical education or healthcare professional to our previously identified keywords to ensure that it is indeed literature dealing with real patients' involvement in the education of healthcare professionals.

RESULTS

Certain terms refer to real and simulated patients. Roles are more or less well described but may refer to multiple terms. The notion of engagement is discussed, but not specifically.

CONCLUSION

Explicitly defining the terms used according to the task descriptions and level of engagement would help contribute to Towle's taxonomy. Real patients would thus feel more legitimately involved in health professional education.

Ethical Issues in Research: Perceptions of Researchers, Research Ethics Board Members and Research Ethics Experts

In the context of academic research, a diversity of ethical issues, conditioned by the different roles of members within these institutions, arise. Previous studies on this topic addressed mainly the perceptions of researchers. However, to our knowledge, no studies have explored the transversal ethical issues from a wider spectrum, including other members of academic institutions as the research ethics board (REB) members, and the research ethics experts. The present study used a descriptive phenomenological approach to document the ethical issues experienced by a heterogeneous group of Canadian researchers, REB members, and research ethics experts. Data collection involved socio-demographic questionnaires and individual semi-structured interviews. Following the triangulation of different perspectives (researchers, REB members and ethics experts), emerging ethical issues were synthesized in ten units of meaning: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. This study highlighted several problematic elements that can support the identification of future solutions to resolve transversal ethical issues in research that affect the heterogeneous members of the academic community.

Systematic Review of Socio-Emotional Values Within Organizations

The theory of separation assumes, with provocation, that an organization cannot reconcile profits and social function. Organizations can reconcile these two, apparently contrasting, missions, by considering emotions, especially moral emotions, to create a genuine motivation for focusing on goals beyond simple economic earnings and protecting organizations or groups of people from dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors, as well as considering the important role of the stakeholder accountability. Using the PRISMA method, we created a review of records using keywords relating to a socio-emotional value within organizations, with a particular focus on the last 20 years. We used the SCOPUS database and, after removing irrelevant records, we used the VOSviewer tool to create a cluster map of different areas in this topic. Some records cite the socio-emotional value that is related to organizational and employee suffering, while other articles consider it a positive factor that improves performance and prevents problems in organizations.