Comparison of Ethical Considerations in the Program for Prevention Aggravation of Diabetic Nephropathy Between Prefectures
Kohei Hayashi
Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 55-72
First Published: July 6, 2022
[in Japanese]
Abstract
It has been reported that the social stigma may be attached to diabetes patients if they are not obedient to health professionals’ instruction. Concerning the program for prevention aggravation of diabetic nephropathy, which aims at the reduction of the number of the serious patients by the promotion of health check-ups, those three items were analyzed and discussed from the viewpoints of ethics: instructions about the ethical consideration when recom-mending the medical consultation, points in the sample of the letter of consent, and wording in the leaflet for pa-tients. Some prefectures added some comments about the ethical consideration following the revision by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, while some didn’t make any additional comments about it though they also revised their program. As for the sample of the letter of consent, the point which requires patients to “comply with the in-struction of their primary care doctors” was mentioned in some prefectures, and this could be a matter of concern considering the social stigma, or the autonomy of patients. It was found that some statements in the prefecture ver-sion of the program might cause the stigmatization of diabetes patients or the decrease in the self-care in them.
Key words
diabetes, ethical consideration, stigma
