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Practical responses to confidentiality dilemmas in elite sport medicine

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journal contribution
posted on 2015-09-25, 10:54 authored by Dominic MalcolmDominic Malcolm, Andrea Scott
Aim: To examine the ethical challenges of upholding patient confidentiality in sports medicine and the practical responses of clinicians to these challenges. Method: Questionnaire survey and follow-up semistructured interviews with the members of the British Olympic Association's Medical Committee and Physiotherapy Forum. Results Clinicians identified three contextual factors that influenced issues related to patient confidentiality in sports medicine: the use of confidentiality waivers; the facilities available for treatment; and the cultural norms of elite sport. They further identified interpersonal strategies used to lessen or eradicate conflicts, including emphasising the benefits and avoidance of disbenefits for athletes and the potential negative consequences for others. Conclusions: Aspects of clinicians' practice environment should be designed to enable compliance with the highest levels of ethical conduct. Professional associations should establish guidelines for clinicians' interpersonal conduct in dealing with confidentiality issues and consider their provision of ethics-based continuous professional development. They should also petition for the establishment of athletes' codes of conduct which identify a context-relevant understanding of 'serious harm' and how that might impact on information disclosure.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

British Journal of Sports Medicine

Volume

48

Issue

19

Pages

1410 - 1413

Citation

MALCOLM, D. and SCOTT, A., 2014. Practical responses to confidentiality dilemmas in elite sport medicine. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 48 (19), pp. 1410 - 1413

Publisher

© BMJ Publishing Group

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2014

Notes

This article was published in the journal, British Journal of Sports Medicine [© BMJ Publishing Group]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2013-092458

ISSN

0306-3674

eISSN

1473-0480

Language

  • en