Perception and confidence of medical students in informed consent: A core EPA

Informed consent discussions have been identified as a core entrustable professional activity for medical students by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Medical students, however, rarely receive formal instruction on how to appropriately conduct informed consent discussions before residency, resulting in inconsistent levels of experience and deficiencies in performance. This study explores medical students' understanding of the elements of informed consent discussions and their readiness to perform a comprehensive informed consent discussion.

Using expert consensus, cognitive interviews, and piloting, we iteratively developed a 15-item survey aligned with entrustable professional activity guidelines concerning informed consent discussions consisting of multiple choice, free text, and 5-point Likert-type questions. The instrument covered domains of experience, confidence, medical-legal knowledge, and recall of informed consent discussion elements. The full survey was distributed anonymously to undergraduate medical students at our institution. An abbreviated survey was administered to postgraduate students who were new interns at our institution. Responses were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics. The free text data were coded for inclusion in this analysis.

A total of 75 undergraduate medical students across all years responded (response rate [RR] = 86%), and 34 (RR = 77%) of the postgraduate students who were new interns participated. A total of 45 (75%) undergraduate medical students reported no training on informed consent discussions, and 9 (15%) undergraduate medical students had never witnessed an informed consent discussion. The undergraduate medical students agreed that informed consent discussions could be legally performed by residents and advance practice providers but were unsure whether the same applied to medical students. On a 5-point scale (anchored to "Not at all," "Somewhat," and "Extremely"), they were "somewhat confident" in their ability to perform an informed consent discussion. When asked to list the 7 elements of an informed consent discussion, 2 undergraduate medical students (3%) were able to identify all the elements. Although 3 undergraduate medical students (9%) had experience leading an informed consent discussion and 11 (32%) reported formal instruction in informed consent, the ability (3.7 ± 0.9 standard deviation [SD]) of the postgraduate students who were new interns to recall the 7 elements was similar to that of the undergraduate medical students (3.4 ± 1.2 SD); P = .31.

These findings suggest that undergraduate medical students and postgraduate students who are new interns are not confident or competent in their ability to perform an appropriate informed consent discussion. Our study findings support the creation of a needs-based, entrustable professional activity-aligned informed consent discussion teaching program and the need for an ongoing evaluation of the success of such a program.