How informed are endocrine surgery patients about the risks of surgery after approving an informed consent?
Yiğit Türk, Özer Makay, Gökhan İçöz, Mahir Akyıldız
Department of General Surgery, Ege University Faculty of Medicine, İzmir, Turkey
Abstract
Objective: The aim is to evaluate if patients reach the level of competence that enables them to make the best decision for themselves with oral and written informed consent process that is legally valid.
Material and Methods: This study included 62 patients who applied to Ege University Hospital Department of General Surgery Endocrine Surgery Clinics and in whom oral and written informed consent was obtained by a surgeon. Patients who were willing to participate in the study were asked to fill in a questionnaire containing questions regarding the concept of consent.
Results: Seventy-one percent of patients were female and 29% were male, with a mean age of 50.4±17.9 years. Six percent of patients were illiterate, 51.6% had primary education and 16.1% were college graduates. One in every two patients stated that they have never heard of informed consent concept before, 16% stated that they signed the consent without reading it. Among these patients, 88% reported that they trusted the physician and did not bother reading because they have already been verbally informed. Verbal briefing by the doctor was detected as 92%. Similarly, 91% of the patients reported that the time allocated to read and fill-in the form was enough.
Conclusion: Informing is not composed simply of conveying information, but also to elevate patients to a proficiency level where they could decide with their best interest. It is thought that the results obtained in this study might guide studies to improve the quality of information in patients undergoing surgery.
Keywords: Informed consent, endocrine surgery patients, operative risks
The study was consulted with local ethical committee to get ethical committee approval and after assessment it has been concluded that ethical approval has not been warranted.
Externally peer-reviewed.
Concept - Ö.M.; Design - Ö.M., Y.T.; Supervision - M.A., G.İ.; Materials - Ö.M.; Data Collection and/or Processing - Ö.M., Y.T.; Analysis and/or Interpretation - Ö.M., Y.T., M.A., G.İ.; Literature Review - Y.T.; Writer - Y.T., Ö.M.; Critical Review - M.A., G.İ., Ö.M.
No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.
The authors declared that this study has received no financial support.