Hospital informed consent for procedure forms: facilitating quality patient-physician interaction.

Area of Science:

• Medical Ethics
• Health Law
• Patient Communication

Background:

• Informed consent is crucial for documenting shared decision-making goals.
• Existing informed consent forms may not adequately meet established standards.
• Patient-physician interactions can be impacted by the format of consent forms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess if informed consent for procedure forms meet accepted standards.
• To evaluate the correlation between state statutes and informed consent standards.
• To determine if current forms enhance patient-physician interactions and shared decision-making.

Main Methods:

• Content analysis of 540 hospital informed consent for procedure forms from 157 US hospitals.
• Examination of forms for the four basic elements of informed consent: nature, risks, benefits, and alternatives.
• Assessment of elements that promote patient-physician interaction and shared decision-making.

Main Results:

• Only 26% of forms included all four basic elements of informed consent.
• Forms primarily served to authorize treatment (75%) or protect providers from liability (59%).
• Fewer than 40% of forms supported shared decision-making models, with no improvement noted in states with specific statutes.

Conclusions:

• Most informed consent forms do not meet accepted standards for patient understanding or shared decision-making.
• A revised form is proposed to better support ideal informed consent and shared decision-making in clinical practice.
• Improving informed consent forms can enhance their applicability and effectiveness in healthcare settings.