How to choose people who are deficient in COVID-19 treatment

As cases of COVID-19 begin to increase again in the United States, the potential for a severe moral dilemma arises. Which patients should be prioritized when medical resources are scarce?

Researchers in the United States and China asked more than 5,000 people in 11 countries how to make one version of their ethical decisions. The study participants reviewed 15 possible scenarios and selected which of the two COVID-19 patients had access to a life-saving ventilator.

The two patients they had to choose were age, gender, viability, Criminal history..

The results show that when people around the world make decisions, they place the highest priority on two characteristics: age and probability of survival.

These two properties explained about 50% of their decisions and the results showed. Combining the other eight properties, the other 50% is explained.

Yunhui Huang, co-author of the study, said, “People are young or have an overall high chance of survival, so by choosing the person who lives the longest as a result of treatment, the overall benefit to society. It seemed like he wanted to maximize it. ” Associate Professor of Marketing at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University.

“It’s a very practical decision.”

However, there were some differences in how people decided depending on their culture, the number of cases they lived in, and whether they felt personally threatened by the disease, The study showed.

Huang conducted a survey with Liyin Jin and Yongheng Liang of Fudan University in Shanghai and Qiang Zhang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen.This study was recently published online Journal of Consumer Research Association..

The 5,175 participants came from 11 countries that covered approximately 49% of the world’s population and 69% of confirmed COVID-19 cases at the time of data collection (April 8-18, 2020). Among them were China, the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Korea.

Everyone participated online. In 15 scenarios, participants were presented with two COVID-19 patients, both of whom needed a ventilator to survive when only one was available. They were asked which patients should be ventilated. Next, we completed a survey to collect demographic information and asked how much they felt COVID-19 was affecting their lives.

Both patients in the scenario were described based on 10 characteristics: age, gender, survival probability, socioeconomic status, criminal history, number of people infected, family members also infected, and expected number of days. .. This patient must be on a ventilator, a cost paid by public funds and nationality.

“Except for age and probability of survival, the other eight were given fairly low weights in the sample, and their weights were not significantly different from each other,” Huang said.

Still, the findings generally show that people who share nationality, who have never committed a crime, and who are likely to be less expensive, need less days to ventilate and become infected. Showed that priority is given to less.

Researchers have discovered differences in people’s reactions from Collectivist cultureEmphasize the needs and goals of the group, not the individualistic culture.

In a collectivist culture like China, which emphasizes respect for the elderly, there was a weak preference for saving young and old patients.They also prioritized people of the same nationality and those who did not Criminal history..

Individualist cultures such as the United States have placed greater importance on the survival potential of patients when deciding who has obtained a ventilator.

Cultural attitudes towards power inequality in society also made a difference in the reaction. Research participants from countries like South Korea, where inequality among people is more accepted, emphasize the criminal record in their decisions.

“Studies show that a culture that accepts higher levels of inequality also favors a more structured world, so it makes sense not to prioritize patients who compromise their stability,” Huang said.

She said that cultures that find inequality among people unacceptable place even more emphasis on survival probabilities, probably because their attributes are not related to social class or geography.

Studies have shown that elements of the COVID-19 pandemic itself influenced people’s moral choices. People in areas with high COVID-19 cases were even more likely to support adolescents. This is one of the previous findings that found that the loss of perceived control, which is likely to be common among people during a pandemic, is associated with more practical moral preferences. I am doing it.

However, those who said they felt the effects of COVID-19 more personally made different calculations in their decisions. They place less emphasis on survival probability when deciding who should get a ventilator.

“People who feel personally threatened by COVID-19 may place more importance on their personal characteristics when considering who should obtain a ventilator at the expense of survival probability. Can be explained, “Huang said.

These discoveries about how the pandemic itself influenced people’s choices have important implications.

“In the process of a pandemic, people’s moral choices may change as they feel more or less threatened by what’s happening around them,” fans said.

The study wasn’t aimed at guiding doctors or policy makers to make decisions, Huang said. However, it is important to know how the general public feels about these ethical issues.

For example, findings show that factors that probably shouldn’t influence treatment decisions, such as criminal records and nationality, can influence people’s choices.

“Physicians and policy makers need to know what the public thinks about these issues when communicating about their policies, including these difficult decisions,” Huang said.