Ethical Foundations of the Accompanying Patient’s Role for an Enhanced Patient Experience: A Scoping Review

Abstract

In recent years, recognizing patients’ experiential knowledge to improve the quality of care has resulted in the participation of patient advisors at various levels of healthcare systems. Some who are working at the clinical level are called accompanying patients (AP). A PRISMA-ScR exploratory scoping review of the literature was conducted on articles published from 2005 to 2021. Articles not in English or French and grey literature were excluded. The databases searched included Medline, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The data were organized according to the similarities in the ethical foundations of the included papers. Out of 2095 identified papers, 8 met inclusion criteria. Terms used to describe APs included peer support, resource parent, and peer health mediator. The clinical settings included psychiatry/mental health and neonatology. APs, patients, healthcare professionals, managers and policy makers were included in the studies. Three personal ethical foundations describing the foundations of the AP role were found: resilience, listening skills and altruism. The ethical foundations of this role also addressed interpersonal and interprofessional relationships with other actors in the healthcare system. The literature on the ethical foundations of APs is sparse, with heterogeneous methodologies. Further studies mobilizing well-defined methodologies would further validate the current results and deepen our understanding of the ethical foundations of the AP role.

Integrating accompanying patients into clinical oncology teams: limiting and facilitating factors

“…Conversely, developments in mental health peer support programs highlighted the fact that implementation in a healthcare setting can be hampered by role confusion, inadequate training of HPs working with peers or lack of professional development, and the slow pace of development [ 13 , 14 , 27 – 30 , 32 , 33 ]. This is consistent with some of our results in terms of governance, where defining the boundaries of APs’ intervention initially slowed down the decision-making process essential to program growth [ 32 , 34 ]. HCs may fear that APs will provide incorrect information and make their work more complex.…”

Integrating Accompanying Patients into Clinical Oncology Teams: Limiting and Facilitating Factors

“…In the literature, Brodar et al 33 showed that some HPs may have concerns that peers could potentially encourage patients not to trust their medical provider. To avoid HPs perceiving the addition of APs as a failure in developing a professional relationship with patients and resulting in overlapping responsibilities, it is crucial that APs' roles be well de ned by clearly differentiating the tasks and expectations for each party concerned 34 . Therefore, harmonizing APs' roles with the rest of the team could help prevent role confusion and increase APs' recognition, leading to a higher impact of their contribution 35 .…”