University of Louisville’s Virtual Health Care Ethics Speaker Series – Child Participation in Decision-Making: From Adult-Centered to Child-Centered Models

This presentation examines current models of child participation in health care decision making, with a focus on the AAP’s recommendation of child assent, revealing the ways in which child assent may actually cause pediatric health care professionals (HCPs) to make the following mistakes: (1) HCPs may think of child participation as an option only when dissent is determinative; (2) HCPs may believe their role to largely be uni-directional information disclosure; and (3) HCPs may sideline the parent, believing parental influence to be counter to good child engagement. The presentation will then review the psychological, sociological and ethics literature on child participation and recommend strategies that re-center the child-patient in medical decision-making.