Decision Aids, Prevention, And the Ethics of Disclosure (Questioning the Quantitative Imperative‪)‬

Patients should not always receive hard data about the risks and benefits of a medical intervention. That information should always be available to patients who expressly ask for it, but it should be part of standard disclosure only sometimes, and only for some patients. And even then, we need to think about how to offer it. It is easy to see why many experts recommend that patients be given quantitative information about the risks and benefits of a test or treatment they are considering, especially when it serves a preventive function. The value of prevention, after all, is based on its ability to reduce the risk posed by some disease or condition, and the magnitude of this risk reduction can be stated precisely only by using numbers. Many experts conclude that such data, when available, should be disclosed to patients to help them make an informed decision. Advocates of the "quantitative imperative," as I call it, often appeal to ethical principles related to informed consent or shared decision-making or, at a deeper level, to the goal of respecting patient autonomy. (1)