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Responsibility and Health

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2005

BRUCE N. WALLER
Affiliation:
Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio

Extract

Autonomy is good for you. A strong sense of competent self-control and effective choice-making promotes both physical and psychological well-being. Loss of autonomous control—and a sense of helplessness—causes depression, increased sensitivity to pain, greater vulnerability to disease, and death. Well established by a wide range of psychological and physiological studies, the positive effects of patient autonomy (and the harms of autonomy deprivation) are well known to competent physicians, nurses, and therapists. Conscientious caregivers are thus moving beyond grudging acceptance of informed consent toward clinical respect for patient autonomy.

Type
SPECIAL SECTION: PATIENT ETHICS
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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