[Informed consent. Doctor and patient: comparison of view points]

Starting with an examination of the ethical and legal need for informed consent, the authors set out to assess the perception of the issue by physicians and patients, with particular reference to the Italian context, but also in comparison with international experience, which emerges from an analysis of the heterogeneous material on the Internet. Regardless of local laws, there seems to be a substantial overlap between the way in which the Italian community of doctors and patients and the international community experience informed consent, which often is not the assurance of an effective therapeutic relationship that we would like it to be.