Framing treatment options: a method to enhance informed consent

Advanced practice nurses are challenged with counseling and providing information to clients about treatment options during the informed consent process. In the clinical area of oncology, clients are faced with choosing treatment options that are undesirable or affect quality and quantity of life directly. Framing as a nursing intervention to assist advanced practice nurses during the informed consent process is explored in this article. Framing provides a method to present information from different vantage points and perspectives with a focus on the client's values and perceptions of quality of life. Parse's man-living-health theory is used to guide nursing practice. Quality of life is addressed with an assessment tool by Ferrans. The use of framing to present treatment options from the client's perspective of health and quality of life, as well as from the biomedical and nursing perspectives, can result in a consent that is truly informed.