Informed Consent

Abstract

Introduction: Informed consent is the back bone of patients’ autonomy. Theadvancement in medical technology has further increased its importance. In the developingcountries including Pakistan, general physicians play a vital role in providing health careto the patients but unfortunately majority of them are unaware about the ethical aspects oftheir medical practice. Methodology: Objectives: 1. To determine the level of awarenessabout informed consent among general practitioners. 2. To assess the association betweenvarious socio-demographic factors to the awareness about informed consent. Study Design:Community based cross sectional study. Settings: General medical practitioners of districtHyderabad were the study population. Period Of Study: Two months. Material & Methods:One hundred & forty subjects were selected for the study through purposive non-probabilitysampling. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was the tool for the data collection. Thedata was analyzed by using SPSS version 16.The variables of interest were gender of generalpractitioners, their age, level of qualifications, residence & occasions when informed consentwas taken. The association between various socio-demographic variables was determined byapplying Chi-square test at ≤0.05 level of significance. Results: One hundred & forty generalmedical practitioners of varying ages from 32-60 years participated in the study. The meanage of the general physician was 39 ± 1.8 years. The awareness about informed consent wasfound among 128(91.4%) subjects but unfortunately only 45.7%of them actually practiced it.The results regarding awareness as well as practice of informed consent among males andfemales were however not significant (p=0.520). The young general practitioners i.e age 31-40years were less practicing informed consent as compared to older general practitioners i.e.age 51-60 years and onwards (p= 0.04).The physicians practicing in urban areas were morecognizant about informed consent (p=0.05).Informed consent from patients was obtainedbefore giving local anesthesia (80%), blood transfusion (24.3%)&before examination of femalepatients (46.4%). Conclusions: Informed consent taking is not a routine process adopted bygeneral medical practitioners so there is a strong need for general practitioners to change theirattitude and acknowledge the patient’s autonomy by taking informed consent, which is thebasis of modern medical ethics.