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A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Lifestyle Factors Affecting Laypeople's Allocation of a Scarce Medical Resource

Nguyen Huynh, A; Furnham, A; McClelland, A; (2020) A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Lifestyle Factors Affecting Laypeople's Allocation of a Scarce Medical Resource. Health , 12 (2) pp. 141-157. 10.4236/health.2020.122013. Green open access

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Abstract

This study investigates how lifestyle factors affect laypeople’s allocation of a scarce medical resource and explores cross-cultural differences in ethical decision-making between the UK, France and Switzerland. A total of 193 participants completed an online questionnaire in which they had to rate the profiles of 16 hypothetical patients in terms of priority for access to kidney dialysis. Each profile was a unique combination of the following lifestyle factors: smoking behaviour, alcohol consumption, weight and amount of physical activity. As predicted, it was found that non-smokers were favoured over smokers, moderate drinkers over heavy drinkers, normal weight patients over obese patients and frequent exercisers over infrequent exercisers. However, contrary to our predictions, no cross-cultural differences were evident. The potential impact of these findings with respect to the formulation of guidelines for allocating scarce medical resources is discussed.

Type: Article
Title: A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Lifestyle Factors Affecting Laypeople's Allocation of a Scarce Medical Resource
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.4236/health.2020.122013
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.4236/health.2020.122013
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2020 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Allocation, Kidney Dialysis, Smoking, Alcohol, Weight, Addiction
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10095708
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