Psychological research provides insights into how parents approach medical decisions on behalf of children. The medical decision of concern here is the surgical alteration of a hypospadic penis, whose urethral opening does not appear at the tip. Hypospadias surgery is routinely carried out in infancy, despite criticism by international organizations concerned about children's rights. The focus of this study is on the framing of hypospadias surgery.
The objective was to examine how health professionals frame hypospadias and hypospadias surgery in medical and non-medical ways.
This was a qualitative study designed to build on the experimental research of Streuli et al. who investigated how medical versus non-medical information affects decision-making about non-essential childhood genital surgery.
Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 32 health professionals. Theoretically informed thematic analysis was used to examine how health professionals talk about hypospadias surgery and about supporting parents to make treatment decisions.
The analysis suggests that medical professionals' engagement with parents underestimates the effect of framing in influencing parental decisions about hypospadias surgery. Some psychological specialists in this area are actively framing hypospadias in ways that enable some parents to choose a non-medical pathway. Psychologically informed ways of talking about a child's genital difference focus on psychological qualities, including affect, well-being, and unconditional positive regard.
The best interests of children with hypospadias may well be served when psychological pathways are highlighted, providing opportunities to support the flourishing of children whose genital appearance raises the question of medical intervention. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Framing significantly affects medical decision-making in ways that people typically fail to perceive. Parents frequently consent to non-essential hypospadias (penile) surgery for their sons, despite the risks and ethical concerns. What does this study add? Medical teams could do more to consider framing when counselling parents about their son's hypospadias. Psychological specialists can help parents to frame their son's penile difference in terms of well-being and love. The best interests of children with hypospadias may be served by highlighting psychological care pathways.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 October 2023.
All research outputs
#8,877,011
of 27,751,730 outputs
Outputs from British Journal of Health Psychology
#614
of 941 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#129,079
of 346,143 outputs
Outputs of similar age from British Journal of Health Psychology
#8
of 12 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,751,730 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 941 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 19.5. This one is in the 33rd percentile – i.e., 33% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 33rd percentile – i.e., 33% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
