Efficacy of the informed consent process for surgical procedures: a review of the literature

Julie Beshara

doi:10.33178/SMJ.2023.1.3

Authors

Julie Beshara

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33178/SMJ.2023.1.3

Keywords:

informed consent, surgical procedures

Abstract

Background: Informed consent is a communication process between a patient and their healthcare team to acquire a patient’s approval to undergo a medical intervention. It is essential to the delivery of legal, safe, and patient-centred health care. Despite this, it is often inadequately implemented in clinical practice which frequently contributes to patients having little understanding and can lead to unfavourable outcomes. Furthermore, interventions to improve the consent process are not well recognized. Ultimately, the evaluation of these factors in this review will be of relevance in improving patient-centred care.

Objectives: Explore degree of understanding and retention of information amongst surgical patients during the informed consent process, identify outcomes of obtaining inadequate informed consent, and evaluate interventions that improve comprehension of surgical treatment.

Methods: The first electronic search was conducted through EBSCOhost to identify relevant literature on MEDLINE, Academic Search Complete, and CINAHL Plus. A second search was completed through PubMed. Exclusion and inclusion filters were applied, and duplicates removed, which yielded 200 articles. Title/Abstract screening yielded 15 articles which have then undergone full text review to assess for eligibility. This generated the 10 articles used in this review.

Results: Surgical patients have poor comprehension with regards to the benefits, risks, and alternatives of their procedure. Although most patients receive some information about their procedure, this was not suited to their personal goals and needs. Surgical patients also greatly benefited from interventions that were assessed to increase patient understanding and improve the informed consent process.

Conclusion: Informed consent is poorly delivered based on the analysis of patient understanding and outcomes. Further research on interventions to improve these elements are recommended as previous studies show notable improvement.

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