• Simmy Grover, Alastair McClelland, and Adrian Furnham.
• Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, UK.
• Br J Health Psychol. 2020 Nov 1; 25 (4): 889-901.

AbstractThis study concerns what lay people believe is the best way to allocate scarce medical resources. A sample of 515 individuals completed a short questionnaire asking them to rank-order eight different ethical positions with respect to the allocation of scarce resources. They showed a strong preference for the 'saves most lives' and 'sickest first' options, with 'reciprocity' and a 'lottery' being least favoured. There was a reasonable degree of unanimity amongst respondents and comparatively few correlations with individual difference factors such as demography. The preference results are compared to expert recommendations (Emanuel et al., 2020, N. Engl. J. Med., 382, 2049) made in light of the current coronavirus pandemic, and differences are highlighted. Implications for scare medical resource allocations are discussed, and limitations of the study acknowledged.© 2020 The British Psychological Society.

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