56 Results Found

Several authors have advanced the idea that psychedelics such as psilocybin might be effective means for achieving moral bioenhancement (MBE). Here, I discuss some reservations on this assertion from both neuropharmacological and bioethical perspecti...

Background: The rising frequency of live kidney donations is accompanied by growing ethical concerns as to donor autonomy, the comprehensiveness of disclosure, and donors’ understanding of long-term consequences. Aim: To explore donors’ s...

As modern society grows increasingly complex, access to essential services such as healthcare, legal aid, tailored education, and psychological support remains heavily gated by socio-economic, neurological, and systemic barriers. This paper explores...

This paper examines the ethical frameworks that guide Āyurvedic practices and compares them with those underlying contemporary Western medicine. At the heart of current bioethical debates is the question of whether certain principles can be univ...

Kähönen argued that the harms associated with psychedelics have been overstated, while evidence for the latter’s moral enhancing effects was disregarded, in my earlier commentary. Here, I respond to these arguments and maintain that t...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) presents significant challenges in diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. Predictive biomarkers offer the potential to revolutionize clinical management, particularly in the preoperative setting, but their imple...

The objective of medicine is to provide humans with the best possible health outcomes from the beginning to the end of life. If the continuation of life becomes unbearable, some may evaluate procedures to end their lives prematurely. One such procedu...

The new COVID-19 pandemic has affected day-to-day life, creating various ethical dilemmas. COVID-19 vaccination is seen as an effective way to halt the pandemic. Ethical challenges can arise when the vaccines are mandated for all ages, but more so wh...

Physicians are obliged to provide treatment that is consistent with their commitment to avoid or minimize harm (nonmaleficence) and their commitment to do good (beneficence). Therefore, if patient’s desires were contradictory to the primary aim of me...

Although vaccination is recognised as the top public health achievement of the twentieth century, unequivocal consensus about its beneficence does not exist among the general population. In countries with well-established immunisation programmes, vac...

Background. Dialysis treatment is improving, but several long-term problems remain unsolved, including metabolic bone disease linked to chronic kidney disease (CKD-MBD). The availability of new, efficacious but expensive drugs (intravenous calcimimet...

In a recent Psychoactives article, Bor Luen Tang argues against psychedelic moral bioenhancement (PMBE)—the use of classic psychedelics such as psilocybin to foster moral growth in healthy individuals [...]

Background: obstetric violence is still far too invisible; the word “violence” generates rejection and obstetric violence is complex to define and typify, as it is a subjective experience. It has been widely analyzed from legal, sociologi...

Ethical discourse on prognosis disclosure is not yet well established. The core of the problem continues to be the dilemma between the right of self-determination and non-maleficence of patients. The prognosis disclosure policy based on Kantian auton...

Hip fracture is the most feared complication of osteoporosis, producing up to 30% mortality at the first year. With the aging of society, it is increasingly common to deal with ethical dilemmas that involve decision making in the elderly patient with...

As we look towards the future of healthcare, integrating Care Robots (CRs) into health systems is a practical approach to address challenges such as an ageing population and caregiver shortages. However, ethical discussions about the impact of CRs on...

Living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) currently represents the treatment of choice for patients with end-stage renal failure. LDKT is a serious event with profound psychological, interpersonal, familial, and social implications. Over the last fe...

The widespread use of digital technologies that can be worn on our bodies—wearables—is presented as a turning point for various areas of biomedical research and healthcare, such as stress. The ability to constantly measure these parameter...

Clinical applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, including in the field of oncology, have the potential to advance diagnosis and treatment. The literature suggests that patient values should be considered in decision making when u...

The use of Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) tattoos as expressions of end-of-life directives presents medical professionals with significant ethical and interpretive uncertainty. Although DNR tattoos may appear to provide clear evidence of a person’s w...

This paper aims to analyze the ethical challenges in experimental drug use during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, using Germany as a case study. In Germany uniform ethical guidelines were available early on nationwide, which was considered...

Systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) is a life-threatening condition with nonspecific symptoms. Because of that, defining a targeted therapy against SIRS in children and adults remains a challenge. The identification of diagnostic patterns...

When nurses encounter people in institutional settings who are living with dementia and self-neglecting their hygiene, they are challenged to provide care that respects autonomy while upholding the ethical principles of beneficence and non-maleficenc...

In the transition to a data-driven society, organizations have introduced data-driven algorithms that often apply artificial intelligence. In this research, an ethical framework was developed to ensure robustness and completeness and to avoid and mit...

Antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) reports classify isolates as “susceptible” despite potential undetected resistant subpopulations—a phenomenon termed susceptibility heterogeneity (SH). Found in 15–97% of clinical isolat...

Influenza is a highly contagious airborne disease with a significant morbidity and mortality burden. Seasonal influenza (SI) vaccination has been recommended for healthcare workers (HCWs) for many years. Despite many efforts to encourage HCWs to be i...

Globally, there is an urgent need for solutions that can support our aging populations to live well and reduce the associated economic, social and health burdens. Implementing smart technologies within homes and communities may assist people to live...

For decades, art in its many forms has been used to improve patients’ quality of life and mental health. A growing amount of literature has shown the effectiveness of active visual art therapy (AVAT) on different patient outcomes and highlighte...

Background: Dentists bear the burden of responsibility for antimicrobial resistance since antibiotics are the drugs most prescribed by dentists. Often, “inappropriate” antibiotic use is considered as a “gray area” by dentists...

We live in a world where hatred and conflicts divide individuals, society, and countries. Although all faith systems and school curriculums emphasize some degree of peaceful co-existence, love, and compassion, the real-world situation is indeed abysm...

Alpha-synuclein has been associated with neurodegeneration, especially in Parkinson’s disease (PD). This study aimed to review clinical, biochemical, and neuroimaging markers and management of prodromal synucleinopathies. The prodromal state of...

Biomarker-based predictive tests for subjectively asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are utilized in research today. Novel applications of artificial intelligence (AI) promise to predict the onset of AD several years in advance without determining...

As extended reality (XR) technologies such as virtual and augmented reality rapidly enter mental health care, ethical considerations lag behind and require urgent attention to safeguard patient safety, uphold research integrity, and guide clinical pr...

Recent clinical trials suggest that psychedelic-assisted therapy is a promising intervention for reducing anxiety and depression and ameliorating existential despair in advanced cancer patients. However, little is known about perceptions toward this...

Background/Objectives: Although prescribing physical activity (PA) is a well-established preventive strategy in primary health care (PHC), its ethical implications remain under-researched. This study examines how general practitioners (GPs) and nurse...

Background: Psychiatrists operate at the interface of clinical care, legal frameworks, and governmental power, where external pressures and insufficient safeguards can potentially engender ethical vulnerabilities. Supranational instruments and wider...

COVID-19 was initially considered a primary respiratory disorder associated with various short- and long-term complications, affecting many patients and imposing a significant burden. Patients who have dementia are especially vulnerable to the SARS-C...

In mental health and psychiatric care, the use of involuntary psychiatric treatment for people with mental disorders is still a central and contentious issue. The main objective of this scoping review was to map and systematize the literature on ethi...

Background/Objectives: The adolescent and youth phase is characterized by rapid physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development during which adolescents encounter numerous challenges. These challenges include experiences of sexual violence, sexuall...

Background: The deployment of large language models (LLMs) in mental health therapy presents a compelling yet deeply fraught opportunity to address widespread disparities in access to psychological care. Recent empirical evidence reveals that these A...

The time required to reach a correct diagnosis is a key concern for rare disease (RD) patients. Diagnostic delay can be intolerably long, often described as an “odyssey” and, for some, a diagnosis may remain frustratingly elusive. The Int...

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) are transforming obesity management, yet landmark trials often incompletely measure and report a central mediator of response: dietary intake. Because GLP-1RAs promote weight loss primarily by supp...

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) represent one of the most important public health problems and concerns, as they are a growing cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, particularly in the elderly. Despite remarkable breakthroughs in our understan...

The four principles of Western medical bioethics, i.e., autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice, published by Beauchamps and Childress in their seminal ‘Principles of Biomedical Ethics’, are understood as universal. However, Non...

This study aims to bridge the gap between the discrepant views of existing studies in different modalities on the cognitive effect of video game play. To this end, we conducted a set of tests with different modalities within each participant: (1) Sel...

Animals do not speak a language humans understand, making it easy to believe that they do not experience pain the way humans do. Despite data affirming that companion animals can and do experience pain much as do humans, there remains a gap between c...

Prescription and administration of pro re nata (PRN) medications has remained a poorly discussed area of the international literature regarding ethical tenets influencing this type of medication practice. In this commentary, ethical tenets of PRN med...

Translational research moves promising primary research results from the laboratory to practical application. The transition from basic science to clinical research and from clinical research to routine healthcare applications presents many challenge...

Obesity is increasingly prevalent among adolescents. Clinical and research data support the use of bariatric surgery (BS) as a treatment option for severely obese adolescents, with good results in terms of weight loss, improvement or resolution of co...

Due to the lifelong nature of diabetes mellitus (DM), it has been demonstrated to have significant effects on patients’ morbidity and mortality. The present study aimed to assess the effects of DM on the clinical outcome and survival in patient...