Bioethics and the use of social media for medical crowdfunding

Abstract

Background Social media has globalised compassion enabling requests for donations to spread beyond geographical boundaries. The use of social media for medical crowdfunding links people with unmet healthcare needs to charitable donors. There is no doubt that fundraising campaigns using such platforms facilitates access to financial resources to the benefit of patients and their caregivers. Main text This paper reports on a critical review of the published literature and information from other online resources discussing medical crowdfunding and the related ethical questions. The review highlighted the benefits of crowdfunding as well as the under-exploration of the risk of having patients’ desires and human rights undermined during online fundraising campaigns. Majority of these campaigns get initiated on behalf of the patients, especially the very sick and dependant. The ethical questions raised relate to the voluntariness of informed consent and the possibility of patients being used as a means to an end. Vulnerability of patients may expose them to coercion, undue influence, manipulation, and violation of their human rights. The success of these campaigns is influenced by the digital skills, pre-existing social networks and, the emotional potency. Healthcare is a public good, and online market forces should not determine access to essential health services. The benefits of crowdfunding cannot be subverted, but it can perpetuate unintended injustices, especially those arising from socio-economic factors. Conclusions Policymakers ought to monitor the utilisation of crowdfunding sites to identify policy failures and unmet essential health care needs responsible for driving individuals to use these platforms. The upholding of human rights and the fundamental respect of the individual’s wishes is a moral imperative. The need for an ethics framework to guide different stakeholders during medical crowdfunding needs further examination.

Explaining Donation Behavior in Medical Crowdfunding in Social Media

“…MC via social media requires the campaign initiators to be acquainted with this form and will use the network in social media. Kubheka (2020) finds the success of these campaigns is influenced by the digital skills, preexisting social networks, and the emotional potency. Berliner and Kenworthy (2017) study the MC campaigns in the United States, and also find media literacy is required to communicate deservingness to stimulate donation or spread the campaign to their personal networks.…”

“…MC in online communities raises funds across geographic restrictions and greatly reduces the transaction costs of financing-related operation in traditional offline fund-raising models through the application of advanced information and communication technology tools (Choy & Schlagwein, 2016). When MC is shared in social medial, not only a donation is convenient but also sharing the campaign to another online community is easy by usually just a click of a button (Brenda Zanele, 2020). This helps to spread the campaign information to more community users.…”

“…It means we should help in the urgent situations like paying medical expenses so to be cured rather than the normal situations where money is needed for reasons other than life-death situation. Among the few research on MC, Murdoch et al (2019), Burtch and Chan (2019), and Bassani et al (2019) show the benefits of MC to individual and society, while Dressler and Kelly (2018), Jin(2019), Kubheka (2020), and Snyder et al (2017) raise the ethics concerns of this form of donation. Liu et al (2018), Kim et al (2016), and Snyder et al (2017) study the credibility of MC campaigns.…”

“…Regarding the role of social media in MC, Beier and Wagner (2015), Lu et al (2015), and Ren et al (2020) show that social media helps to spread MC campaigns. Berliner and Kenworthy (2017) and Kubheka (2020) emphasize the requirement of digital skills in MC successful in social media. The extant study often relies on the hard information extracted from campaigns and initiators while ignoring the thoughts and the opinions of the donor.…”

The future of basic science in orthopaedics and traumatology: Cassandra or Prometheus?

“…One can think of crowdfunding [ 200 , 201 ] or setting up specific charity funds dedicated to orthopaedic and trauma research. Of course ethical and privacy issues needs to be taken into consideration [ 202 , 203 ]. To enhance the effects of such funding strategies, the scientists should also enhance their exposure and outreach with a special emphasis on societal impact.…”