Privacy, dignity, and confidentiality: interview study with structured questionnaire.

Respect for patients’ privacy and dignity and the maintenance of confidentiality are long established principles of medical practice. The General Medical Council has emphasised that treating patients and families politely is important in establishing and maintaining their trust. 2 Recent technological advances have changed the focus of privacy and confidentiality issues towards patients’ identities in publications and security of medical records. Considerations of patients’ dignity have concentrated on specific groups—for example, patients who are dying. Long established ideals and principles relating to privacy, dignity, and confidentiality, however, may not be expressed in clinical practice. As children and their parents have the same rights to these principles as adult patients, I conducted a survey of parents’ views on these issues in the context of paediatric hospital practice.