Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39921819›Full record

ArticleMonash bioethics review2025

Lessons from COVID-19 patient visitation restrictions: six considerations to help develop ethical patient visitor policies.

Tracy Beth Høeg, Benjamin Knudsen, Vinay Prasad

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Monash bioethics review, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Tracy Beth HøegSloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Office E62-562. 100 Main St., Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA. tbhoeg@mit.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2341-6573
Benjamin KnudsenGeorge Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, USA.
Vinay PrasadDepartment of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Patient visitor restrictions were implemented in unprecedented ways during the COVID-19 pandemic and included bans on any visitors to dying patients and bans separating mothers from infants. These were implemented without high quality evidence they would be beneficial and the harms to patients, families and medical personnel were often immediately clear. Evidence has also accumulated finding strict visitor restrictions were accompanied by long-term individual and societal consequences. We highlight numerous examples of restrictions that were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, including some that continue to be in place today. We outline six specific concerns about the nature and effects of the visitor restrictions seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. These considerations may help provide both an ethical and science-based framework, through which healthcare workers, families and government entities can work towards safeguarding patient and family rights and well-being.

Indexed as

COVID-19Visitors to PatientsHumansPandemicsSARS-CoV-2COVID-19Health policyInfectious diseasesMedical ethicsPatient visitor restrictions

Identifiers

PMID39921819
PMCPMC12615509

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.