Informed consent: a crucial step in cancer patient education

Informed consent is an issue of major importance for cancer patients and for the practitioners who treat them. Recently, the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research emphasized the educational goals of the consent process. Nevertheless, past research confirms that these goals are difficult to attain. In this paper, we present an overview of informed consent and describe a study of informed consent to cancer treatment conducted at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in which the consultation between the patient and physician (and/or other health professional) was observed and patients were interviewed. On the average, patients recalled less than 40% of what they were told. Patients who were told more items recalled more; however, they recalled a smaller proportion of what they were told. Several implications for health education are drawn from the study results.