Personalized video consent in Blepharoplasty: A new paradigm in the preoperative consent giving process

Informed consent is not simply the signing of a form by the patient but more significantly, a process of an in-depth communication between the doctor and the patient.

The written informed consent process typically involves reading a lengthy document involving the medical terms which at times lead to misinterpretation. Therefore, the current research envisages assessing the effectiveness and acceptability of the video consent tool athwart the traditional written consent procedure.

A retrospective questionnaire study was carried out with 30 patients posted for Blepharoplasty surgery between ages of 18-50 years. They were divided into two groups randomly. All the participants were given written consent. Video consent was taken additionally for group 2 subjects. All the participants received pre-validated questionnaire. The evaluation scale used was a 5-point Likert scale.

People with video consent group were more satisfied with the consent process. It was noted that all the patients who received video consent were happier and understood the consent process better than patients with written consent only.

The inference drawn from our study depicts that video consent is not just easy to understand and clarifies the doubts associated with the surgery but also significantly reduces the anxiety of the patient preoperatively. Also, in other 'quality of life' improving cosmetic procedures including rhinoplasty, face lift surgeries, jaw surgeries, botox, fillers, lasers etc., video consenting tool can be used to a maximum benefit. It is strongly recommended to adopt the practice of taking video consent format in all forms of cosmetic procedures.