Assessing the quality of democratic deliberation: A case study of public deliberation on the ethics of surrogate consent for research
Assessing the quality of democratic deliberation: A case study of public deliberation on the ethics of surrogate consent for research
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DOI：
10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.02.031
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发表时间：
2010-06-01
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Kim, Scott Y.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
De Vries, Raymond;Stanczyk, Aimee;Kim, Scott Y.
“协商民主”是一种越来越受欢迎的方法，征求公众对医疗保健政策的意见。组织协商民主会议的方式有很多种，但一般都是召集一群公民，向他们提供与所讨论的政策相关的信息，给他们时间相互交流，并与政策领域的专家交流，收集他们知情和深思熟虑的意见。随着这一方法得到更广泛的使用，一些人质疑它产生的公共投入的质量。虽然DD理论家同意“好”的输入-即，经过认真和彻底思考后提出的意见是有益和有效审议的一个重要方面，但很少有人实际衡量审议会议的质量。作为DD项目的一部分，我们开发并测试了“审议质量”的测量方法，该项目旨在帮助指导关于允许代理人允许痴呆症患者参加医学研究这一道德复杂问题的政策。“在简要讨论了我们研究的实质性结果之后，来自DD会议参与者和对照组的调查数据显示，参与者对代理同意的态度发生了显着变化，我们研究了这种变化发生的过程，描述和评估了我们DD会议的特点。我们使用在美国密歇根州东南部进行的DD会议的定量和定性数据来检查审议质量的四个方面：（1）所有成员平等参与会议，（2）尊重他人的意见，（3）愿意从社会角度看待有关问题（而不是专注于什么是最好的参与者作为个人），和4）合理的理由证明自己的立场。我们证明，DD可以可靠地用来引起公众的意见，并显示如何分析的审议质量可以提供洞察的方式，对道德困境的意见形成和改变。(C)2010爱思唯尔有限公司版权所有。
"Deliberative democracy" is an increasingly popular method for soliciting public input on health care policies. There are a number of ways of organizing deliberative democracy (DD) sessions, but they generally involve gathering a group of citizens, supplying them with information relevant to the policy in question, giving them time to interact with each other and with experts in the policy area, and collecting their informed and considered opinions. As the method has become more widely used, some have questioned the quality of the public input it generates. Although theorists of DD agree that "good" input - i.e., input that is the product of careful and thorough reflection is an essential aspect of useful and effective deliberation, few have actually measured the quality of deliberative sessions. As part of a DD project organized to help guide policies on the morally complex question of allowing surrogate permission to enroll persons with dementia in medical research, we developed and tested measures of "quality of deliberation." After a brief discussion of the substantive results of our research survey data from participants in the DD sessions and control groups showed a significant change in participants' attitudes toward surrogate consent we examine the process by which this change occurred, describing and assessing the characteristics of our DD sessions. We use both quantitative and qualitative data from our DD sessions, conducted in southeastern Michigan, United States, to examine four dimensions of the quality of deliberation: 1) equal participation by all members of the session, 2) respect for the opinions of others, 3) a willingness to adopt a societal perspective on the issue in question (rather than a focus on what is best for participants as individuals), and 4) reasoned justification of one's positions. We demonstrate that DD can be reliably used to elicit opinions of the public and show how analysis of the quality of deliberations can offer insight into the ways opinions about ethical dilemmas are formed and changed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.