ArticleJournal of medical ethics2020
Healthcare professionals' responsibility for informing relatives at risk of hereditary disease.
Article in Journal of medical ethics, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cascade Testing for Hereditary Cancer Syndromes: Should We Move Toward Direct Relative Contact? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2022Pooled it
- Direct letters to relatives at risk of hereditary cancer-a randomised trial on healthcare-assisted versus family-mediated risk disclosure.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2025Trial
- Patients' and family members' experiences with cascade testing for Lynch syndrome in the USA: a qualitative interview study.Journal of community genetics · 2026Article
- Survivors' Responses to an Online Intervention to Promote Discussions of Cancer Genetic Risk with Blood Relatives.Public health genomics · 2026Article
- "Choosing the main character": healthcare professionals' attitudes towards counselling patients about risk disclosure to relatives in the era of mainstream cancer genetic testing.Familial cancer · 2025Article
- "Would you want to know?" Questions of utility and responsibility in Italian laypersons' preferences about genetic risk communication.Journal of community genetics · 2025Article
- Who has the responsibility to inform relatives at risk of hereditary cancer? A population-based survey in Sweden.BMJ open · 2024Article
- The experience of receiving a letter from a cancer genetics clinic about risk for hereditary cancer.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2024Article
- Direct notification by health professionals of relatives at-risk of genetic conditions (with patient consent): views of the Australian public.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2024Article
- Article
- Pathogenic germline variants in patients with breast cancer: conversations across generations, practices and patients' attitude.Frontiers in genetics · 2023Article
- Patient and Family Preferences on Health System-Led Direct Contact for Cascade Screening.Journal of personalized medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Advances in genetic diagnostics lead to more patients being diagnosed with hereditary conditions. These findings are often relevant to patients' relatives. For example, the success of targeted cancer prevention is dependent on effective disclosure to relatives at risk. Without clear information, individuals cannot take advantage of predictive testing and preventive measures. Against this background, we argue that healthcare professionals have a duty to make actionable genetic information available to their patients' at-risk relatives. We do not try to settle the difficult question of how this duty should be balanced against other duties, such as the duty of confidentiality and a possible duty not to know one's genetic predisposition. Instead, we argue for the importance of recognising a general responsibility towards at-risk relatives, to be discharged as well as possible within the limits set by conflicting duties and practical considerations. According to a traditional and still dominant perspective, it is the patient's duty to inform his or her relatives, while healthcare professionals are only obliged to support their patients in discharging this duty. We argue that this perspective is a mistake and an anomaly. Healthcare professionals do not have a duty to ensure that their patients promote the health of third parties. It is often effective and desirable to engage patients in disseminating information to their relatives. However, healthcare professionals should not thereby deflect their own moral responsibility.
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