Incognito standardized patients for studying healthcare stigma: partial deception and other ethical challenges

Key Points

• The aim is to explore the ethical implications of using incognito standardized patients to assess stigma in healthcare environments.
• Review traditional standardized patient methodologies
• Introduce incognito visits as a new approach
• Discuss potential harms and benefits of the new method
• Identified various ethical challenges associated with partial deception
• Discussed the balance between research benefits and potential harm to individuals
• Highlighted the need for guidelines when using incognito methods in healthcare research

Abstract