title: [Personal responsibility -- a criterion for allocation in health care?].
abstract: Personal responsibility of patients for their own health is often cited as a means of allocating health care resources. It is however unclear whether applying responsibility as a distributive criterion is just. Several difficulties are associated with the concept of personal responsibility in the medical field. These include in particular 1) theoretical considerations of justice 2) causal factors in medicine, and 3) freedom of health behaviour. The article investigates these problems and tries to determine conditions for a fair use of self-responsibility as a criterion for allocation of resources in health care.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Ethik, Geschichte und Theorie der Medizin, Universitätsklinikum Münster. Alena.Buyx@mednet.uni-muenster.de
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Buyx
mesh_terms: D004194:Disease / Q000209:etiology*; D005544:Forecasting; D005858:Germany; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000639:trends*; D010344:Patient Advocacy / Q000639:trends; D040841:Resource Allocation / Q000639:trends*; D012648:Self Care / Q000639:trends*; D012941:Social Responsibility