ArticleBioethics2020
Medicine's collision with false hope: The False Hope Harms (FHH) argument.
Article in Bioethics, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cost-effectiveness, pharmaceutical pricing and the value flower - doing some gardening.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2026Article
- Therapeutic Misconception as a Problem of Nonmaleficence by Way of False Hope.Health care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy · 2026Article
- Hope as moral accompaniment: a framework for palliative care practice.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- An exploration of the perspectives of Dutch adults experiencing a genetic condition on human germline gene editing.Journal of community genetics · 2025Article
- Hope pluralism in antenatal palliative care.Journal of medical ethics · 2025Article
- Be-SNAP: the Belgian Sepsis National Action Plan.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Balancing ethical norms and duties for the introduction of new medicines through conditional marketing authorization: a research agenda.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Perceived challenges in treatment decision-making for endometriosis: healthcare professional perspectives.Health psychology and behavioral medicine · 2024Article
- Alternative cancer clinics' use of Google listings and reviews to mislead potential patients.BJC reports · 2024Article
- Do Physicians Have a Duty to Discuss Expanded Access to Investigational Drugs with their Patients? A Normative Analysis.The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2023Article
- Applying Game Theory Models to Inpatient Medicine: Opportunities to Improve Care.Journal of community hospital internal medicine perspectives · 2023Article
- The 'false hope' argument in discussions on expanded access to investigational drugs: a critical assessment.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2022Article
- 'Advocacy groups are the connectors': Experiences and contributions of rare disease patient organization leaders in advanced neurotherapeutics.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2022Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
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Abstract
The goal of this paper is to introduce the false hope harms (FHH) argument, as a new concept in healthcare. The FHH argument embodies a conglomerate of specific harms that have not convinced providers to stop endorsing false hope. In this paper, it is submitted that the healthcare profession has an obligation to avoid collaborating or participating in, propagating or augmenting false hope in medicine. Although hope serves important functions-it can be 'therapeutic' and important for patients' 'self-identity as active agents'- the presentation of false hope along the hope continuum entails a misconstrued balancing act. By not speaking up against unrealistic patient and family requests-including some requests for rights to try, resuscitative efforts in terminally ill patients, or other demands for non-beneficial treatments-healthcare providers precipitate harms, i.e., the FHH. These harms arise on both individual and communal levels and cannot be ignored. The goal of this paper is not to offer a definition of false hope, because the phenomenon of false hope is too complex for any simple definition. Instead, this paper seeks to make four points while outlining the FHH argument: consumer medicine and false hope are connected; providers and patients are very vulnerable in the system of consumer medicine; providers have a responsibility to stand up against false hope; and how the FHH argument could perhaps offer a footing to resist giving in to false hope.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.