Animation Supported Consent Before Elective Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy.

Area of Science:

• Surgical Education
• Patient Communication
• Informed Consent

Background:

• Incomplete patient understanding of surgical procedures compromises informed consent and increases liability risks.
• Factors like remote consultations and language barriers impede effective patient communication and shared decision-making.
• Novel strategies are required to enhance patient comprehension and engagement in surgical consent processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of multi-language digital animations on patient understanding of laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
• To assess improvements in patient comprehension of procedure details, benefits, risks, and alternatives.

Main Methods:

• A comparative study involving 72 patients undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy at The Royal London Hospital.
• Patients completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires assessing understanding, with 37 in the no-animation group and 35 in the animation group.
• Multi-language digital animations explaining the procedure were integrated into the consent pathway for the intervention group.

Main Results:

• Patients receiving digital animations demonstrated significantly higher reported understanding across all assessed domains (procedure, benefits, risks, alternatives) compared to the control group (p < 0.01).
• Reported understanding increased from 54% to 91% for the procedure, 57% to 91% for benefits, 38% to 74% for risks, and 24% to 77% for alternatives.
• The groups were comparable in age, sex, and primary language, ensuring robust comparison.

Conclusions:

• Integrating multi-language video animations into the surgical consent process substantially improves patient understanding.
• This digital approach offers a standardized, effective method to enhance informed consent across surgical specialties.
• The findings support the use of multimedia tools to overcome communication barriers in modern surgical practice, especially with remote consultations.