Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Patient's refusal of treatment is the rational consequence of informed consent and is considered among the patient's rights but can lead to patient harm or harm to others, or damage to the health care system. Major ethical challenges in the field of treatment refusal arise from capacitated patients. This paper mainly examines theoretical issues related to this group by reviewing books on jurisprudence, philosophy and bioethics, especially textbooks that include moral philosophers' perspectives, the views of experts in bioethics and jurisprudential considerations related to this issue. These views sometimes are very different or in conflict with each other. Based on different schools of philosophy or ethics, our encounters with patients who refuse treatment can range from abandoning patients on the one hand to treating them at any cost, even by coercion or deception on the other hand. According to Islamic perspectives, people have no right to harm themselves, but because of the authority that each person has on his or her body, this does not mean that compulsory treatment is permitted it means that caregivers must try to persuade patients to accept treatment, and must not cooperate with them to harm themselves and to discontinue treatment specifically.

Keywords: treatment refusal, involuntary treatment, autonomy, patient satisfaction, patients’ rights

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