Background: The concept of dehumanization is not new to psychology, but in recent years the study of the phenomenon in the field of health has begun. By dehumanization, we mean the removal of humanness from the other human being. Purpose: The purpose of this review is the bibliography background in the field of health in order to investigate if there is dehumanization. Method: The methodology that has been used is the review of literature from 2002 to 2019 with keywords in the databases: Google scholar, Pubmed, PsycInfo and Scopus. Results: The use of language by health professionals can comfort or dehumanize the hospitalized patient. Workload, bureaucracy, and profit-oriented economic policies can also lead to dehumanization. The difference in socioeconomic characteristics between doctors and patients can also contribute to the dehumanization of the hospitalized patient. Medical education that focuses on the affected organ rather than the holistic treatment of the patient, the overuse of technology, and the failure to discriminate against the patient can also contribute to dehumanization. Conclusion: It can be seen from the literature review that there is dehumanization in the hospital settings and it is suggested measures be taken to deal with the phenomenon.
Bailey, J. E. (2011). Does Health Information Technology Dehumanize Health Care? The Virtual Mentor, 13, 181-185. https://doi.org/10.1001/virtualmentor.2011.13.3.msoc1-1103
Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (2010). Excluded from Humanity: The Dehumanizing Effects of Social Ostracism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 107-113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.06.022
Borrell-Carrió, F., Suchman, A. L., & Epstein, M. R. (2004). The Biopsychosocial Model 25 Years Later: Principles, Practice, and Scientific Inquiry. Annals of Family Medicine, 2, 576-582. https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.245
Capozza, D., Falvo, R., Boin, J., & Colledani, D. (2016). Dehumanization in Medical Contexts: An Expanding Research Field. Testing, Psychometrics, Metrology in Applied Psychology, 23, 545-559.
Ceriani Cernadas, J. M (2013). The Road towards a More Humane Medicine. Archivos Argentinos de Pediatria, 111, 274-275. https://doi.org/10.5546/aap.2013.eng.274
Chadwick, R. (2015). Compassion: Hard to Define, Impossible to Mandate. British Medical Journal, 351, Article No. h3991. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h3991
Charon, R., Hermann, N., & Devlin, M. J. (2016). Close Reading and Creative Writing in Clinical Education: Teaching Attention, Representation, and Affiliation. Academic Medicine, 91, 345-350. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000827
Chochinov, H. (2007). Dignity and the Essence of Medicine: The A, B, C and D of Dignity Conserving Care. British Medical Journal, 335, 184-187. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39244.650926.47
Ciechanowski, S. P. (2010). As Fundamental as Nouns and Verbs? Towards an Integration of Attachment Theory in Medical Training. Medical Education, 44, 122-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2009.03578.x
Coşkun, A. (2015). Dehumanization as an Ethical Issue in the Health Services Sector. Turkish Journal of Business Ethics, 7, 29-51. https://doi.org/10.12711/tjbe.2014.7.2.0160
Dans, E. P. (2002). The Use of Pejorative Terms to Describe Patients: “Dirtball” Revisited. Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 15, 26-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/08998280.2002.11927811
Detsky, A. S., Gauthier, S. R., & Fuchs, V. R. (2012). Specialization in Medicine—How Much Is Appropriate? Journal of American Medical Association, 307, 463-464. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.44
Dolan, B. (2007). Soul Searching: A Brief History of the Mind/Body Debate in the Neurosciences. Neurosurgical Focus, 23, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.3171/FOC-07/07/E2
Figueras, J., McKee, M., Lessof, S., Duran, A., & Menabde, N. (2008). Health Systems, Health and Wealth: Assessing the Case for Investing in Health Systems. WHO Regional Office for Europe. https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/83997/E93699.pdf
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J., & Glick P. (2007). Universal Dimensions of Social Cognition: Warmth and Competence. Trends in Cognitive Science, 11, 77-83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2006.11.005
Geiger, K. A., & Jordan, C. (2014). The Role of Societal Privilege in the Definitions and Practices of Inclusion. Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, 33, 261-274. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2013-0115
Gray, M. H., Gray, K., & Wegner, M. D. (2007). Dimensions of Mind Perception. Science, 315, 619. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1134475
Haque, M. (2019). Importance of Empathy among Medical Doctors to Ensure High-Quality Healthcare Level. Advances in Human Biology, 9, 104-107. https://doi.org/10.4103/AIHB.AIHB_44_18 https://www.aihbonline.com/article.asp?issn=2321-8568;year=2019;volume=9;issue=2;spage=104;epage=107;aulast=Haque;type=0
Haque, O. S., & Waytz, A. (2012). Dehumanization in Medicine: Causes, Solutions, and Functions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 176-186. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691611429706
Haslam, N. & Loughnan, S. (2014). Dehumanization and Infrahumanization. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 399-423. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115045
Haslam, N. (2006). Dehumanization: An Integrative Review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 252-264. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_4
Haslam, N. (2007). Humanising Medical Practice: The Role of Empathy. The Medical Journal of Australia, 187, 381-382. https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01305.x
Lee, K. M., Fruchter, N., & Dabbish, L. (2015, February). Making Decisions from a Distance: The Impact of Technological Mediation on Riskiness and Dehumanization. In: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 1576-1589). https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675288
Lekka, D., Richardson, C., Madoglou, A., Orlandou, K., Arachoviti, V., Karamanoli, V. I. et al. (2022). Study of the Association of Insecure Attachment with the Dehumanization and Self-Dehumanization of Patients Hospitalized With Psychotic Disorder and Organic Disease. Cureus, 14, Article ID: e21445. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.21445
Lekka, D., Richardson, C., Madoglou, A., Orlandou, K., Karamanoli, V. I., Roubi, A. et al. (2021). Dehumanization of Hospitalized Patients and Self-Dehumanization by Health Professionals and the General Population in Greece. Cureus, 13, Article ID: e20182. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.20182
Leopold, S. S., Gebhardt, M. C., Potter, B. K., & Wongworawat, M. D. (2014). Editorial: Words Hurt—Avoiding Dehumanizing Language in Orthopaedic Research and Practice. Clinical Orthopedics Related Research, 472, 2561-2563. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11999-014-3802-8
Martinez, A. G., Piff, P. K., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Hinshaw, S. P. (2011). The Power of a Label: Mental Illness Diagnoses, Ascribed Humanity, and Social Rejection. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 30, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2011.30.1.1
Miles, A. (2012). Person-Centered Medicine—At the Intersection of Science, Ethics and Humanism. The International Journal of Person Centered Medicine, 2, 329-333.
Obermann, M. L. (2011). Moral Disengagement in Self-Reported and Peer-Nominated School Bullying. Aggressive Behavior, 37, 133-144. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20378
OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) (2009). Economic Surveys: Greece, 2009 (pp. 1-15). Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
Opotow, S. (1990). Moral Exclusion and Injustice: An Introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 46, 173-182. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1990.tb00280.x
Pappa, E., & Niakas, D. (2006). Assessment of Health Care Needs and Utilisation in a Mixed Public-Private System: The Case of the Athens Area. ΒMS Health Services Research, 6, Article No. 146. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-6-146
Pawlikowski, M. (2002). Dehumanization of Contemporary Medicine: Causes and Remedies. Neuroendocrinology Letters, 23, 5-7. https://www.nel.edu/userfiles/articlesnew/NEL230102E03.pdf
Pickersgill, Μ. D. (2013). From ‘Implications’ to ‘Dimensions’: Science, Medicine and Ethics in Society. Health Care Analysis, 21, 31-42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-012-0219-y
Post, G. S. (2011). Compassionate Care Enhancement: Benefits and Outcomes. The International Journal of Person Centered Medicine, 1, 808-813.
Prati, F., Crisp, J. R., Meleady, R., & Rubini, M. (2016a). Humanizing Outgroups Through Multiple Categorization: The Roles of Individuation and Threat. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42, 526-539. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216636624
Prati, F., Crisp, J. R., Pratto, F., & Rubini, M. (2016b). Encouraging Majority Support for Immigrant Access to Health Services: Multiple Categorization and Social Identity Complexity as Antecedents of Health Equality. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 19, 426-438. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430216629814
Rudman, A. L., & Mescher, K. (2012). Of Animals and Objects: Men’s Implicit Dehumanization of Women and Likelihood of Sexual Aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 734-746. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212436401
Schroeder J., & Fishbach, A. (2015). The ‘‘Empty Vessel’’ Physician: Physicians’ Instrumentality Makes Them Seem Personally Empty. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6, 940-949. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550615597976
Tauber, Α. Ι. (2008). Medicine and the Call for a Moral Epistemology, Part II. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 51, 450-463. https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.0.0034
Vaes, J., & Muratore, M. (2013). Defensive Dehumanization in the Medical Practice: A Cross-Sectional Study from a Health Care Worker’s Perspective. British Journal of Social Psychology, 52, 180-190. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12008
Vogt, H., Ulvestad, E., Eriksen, T.E., & Getz, L. (2014). Getting Personal: Can Systems Medicine Integrate Scientific and Humanistic Conceptions of the Patient? Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 20, 942-952. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.12251
Warner, H. J. (2013). The Humanizing Power of Medical History: Responses to Biomedicine in the 20th-Century United States. Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 77, 322-329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.03.090
Waytz, A., & Schroeder, J. (2014). Overlooking Others: Dehumanization by Comission and Omission. Testing Psychometrics Methodology, 21, 251-266. https://www.tpmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/21.3.2.pdf