Consent on the labour ward: A qualitative study of the views and experiences of healthcare professionals

OBJECTIVE

Consent on the labour ward is a complex and controversial topic which is poorly understood. Consenting labouring women is recognised as challenging and problematic, and thus, it is uncertain that pregnant women experience true informed consent during labour. This project aims to explore healthcare professionals' views and experiences of consent practice on the labour ward.

DESIGN

Qualitative research performed in a tertiary hospital labour ward in Central London with 5500 patients annually. Eleven obstetricians and seven midwives participated. In-depth one-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the data were analysed by thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Three themes were identified: 1) The value of women's choice: healthcare professionals framed consent as an agreement process rather than an exercise of choice. Implicit paternalism was evident with some healthcare professionals imposing their own recommendations upon patients. 2) Communicating risk: many participants viewed full risk communication, including extremely rare risk disclosure as their duty to ensure the validity of obstetric consent despite the risk of overwhelming women. 3) Law and professional practice: many healthcare professionals lacked knowledge of the implications to practice of current law.

CONCLUSION

Healthcare professionals' experiences of consent on the labour ward reflect uncertainties and ambiguities in consent practice such that it sometimes falls short of legal and professional requirements. Difficulties in discussing risk with women in an appropriate way at an appropriate time threatens the lawfulness of consent. If consent is to remain as the legal standard of autonomy, we recommend the provision of specialist training to assist professionals in providing timely consultation dialogues which endorse women's right to choose.

Autonomy, consent and responsibility. Part II. Informed consent in medical care and in the law

Legal recognition of patient's rights aspired to change clinical relationship and medical lex artis. However, its implementation has been hampered by the scarcity of resources and the abundance of regulations. For several years, autonomy, consent, and responsibility have formed one of the backbones of the medical profession. However, they have sparked controversy and professional discomfort. In the first part of this article, we examine the conceptual and regulatory limitations of the principle of autonomy as the basis of informed consent. We approach the subject from philosophical, historical, legal, bioethical, deontological, and professional standpoints. In the second part, we cover the viability of informed consent in health care and its relationship with legal responsibility.

Doctors' perspectives of informed consent for non-emergency surgical procedures: a qualitative interview study

BACKGROUND

The need to involve patients more in decisions about their care, the ethical imperative and concerns about ligation and complaints has highlighted the issue of informed consent and how it is obtained. In order for a patient to make an informed decision about their treatment, they need appropriate discussion of the risks and benefits of the treatment.

OBJECTIVES

To explore doctors' perspectives of gaining informed consent for routine surgical procedures.

DESIGN

Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews selected by purposive sampling. Data were analysed thematically.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Twenty doctors in two teaching hospitals in the UK.

RESULTS

Doctors described that while consent could be taken over a series of consultations, it was common for consent to be taken immediately prior to surgery. Juniors were often taking consent when they were unfamiliar with the procedure. Doctors used a range of communication techniques to inform patients about the procedure and its risks including quantifying risks, personalizing risk, simplification of language and use of drawings. Barriers to effective consent taking were reported to be shortage of time, clinician inexperience and patients' reluctance to be involved.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Current consent processes do not appear to be ideal for many doctors. In particular, junior doctors are often not confident taking consent for surgical procedures and require more support to undertake this task. This might include written information for junior staff, observation by senior colleagues when undertaking the task and ward-based communication skills teaching on consent taking.

'This wound has spoilt everything': emotional capital and the experience of surgical site infections

In this article we explore the experience of suffering from a surgical site infection, a common complication of surgery affecting around 5 per cent of surgical patients, via an interview study of 17 patients in the Midlands in the UK. Despite their prevalence, the experience of surgical site infections has received little attention so far. In spite of the impairment resulting from these iatrogenic problems, participants expressed considerable stoicism and we interpret this via the notion of emotional capital. This idea derives from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Helga Nowotny and Diane Reay and helps us conceptualise the emotional resources accumulated and expended in managing illness and in gaining the most from healthcare services. Participants were frequently at pains not to blame healthcare personnel or hospitals, often discounting the infection's severity, and attributing it to chance, to 'germs' or to their own failure to buy and apply wound care products. The participants' stoicism was thus partly afforded by their refusal to blame healthcare institutions or personnel. Where anger was described, this was either defused or expressed on behalf of another person. Emotional capital is associated with deflecting the possibility of complaint and sustaining a deferential and grateful position in relation to the healthcare system.

Interventions to promote informed consent for patients undergoing surgical and other invasive healthcare procedures

BACKGROUND

Achieving informed consent is a core clinical procedure and is required before any surgical or invasive procedure is undertaken.  However, it is a complex process which requires patients be provided with information which they can understand and retain, opportunity to consider their options, and to be able to express their opinions and ask questions.  There is evidence that at present some patients undergo procedures without informed consent being achieved.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the effects on patients, clinicians and the healthcare system of interventions to promote informed consent for patients undergoing surgical and other invasive healthcare treatments and procedures.

SEARCH METHODS

We searched the following databases using keywords and medical subject headings: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL, The Cochrane Library, Issue 5, 2012), MEDLINE (OvidSP) (1950 to July 2011), EMBASE (OvidSP) (1980 to July 2011) and PsycINFO (OvidSP) (1806 to July 2011). We applied no language or date restrictions within the search. We also searched reference lists of included studies.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Randomised controlled trials and cluster randomised trials of interventions to promote informed consent for patients undergoing surgical and other invasive healthcare procedures. We considered an intervention to be intended to promote informed consent when information delivery about the procedure was enhanced (either by providing more information or through, for example, using new written materials), or if more opportunity to consider or deliberate on the information was provided.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Two authors assessed the search output independently to identify potentially-relevant studies, selected studies for inclusion, and extracted data. We conducted a narrative synthesis of the included trials, and meta-analyses of outcomes where there were sufficient data.

MAIN RESULTS

We included 65 randomised controlled trials from 12 countries involving patients undergoing a variety of procedures in hospitals. Nine thousand and twenty one patients were randomised and entered into these studies. Interventions used various designs and formats but the main data for results were from studies using written materials, audio-visual materials and decision aids. Some interventions were delivered before admission to hospital for the procedure while others were delivered on admission.Only one study attempted to measure the primary outcome, which was informed consent as a unified concept, but this study was at high risk of bias.  More commonly, studies measured secondary outcomes which were individual components of informed consent such as knowledge, anxiety, and satisfaction with the consent process.  Important but less commonly-measured outcomes were deliberation, decisional conflict, uptake of procedures and length of consultation.Meta-analyses showed statistically-significant improvements in knowledge when measured immediately after interventions (SMD 0.53 (95% CI 0.37 to 0.69) I(2) 73%), shortly afterwards (between 24 hours and 14 days) (SMD 0.68 (95% CI 0.42 to 0.93) I(2) 85%) and at a later date (15 days or more) (SMD 0.78 (95% CI 0.50 to 1.06) I(2) 82%). Satisfaction with decision making was also increased (SMD 2.25 (95% CI 1.36 to 3.15) I(2) 99%) and decisional conflict was reduced (SMD -1.80 (95% CI -3.46 to -0.14) I(2) 99%). No statistically-significant differences were found for generalised anxiety (SMD -0.11 (95% CI -0.35 to 0.13) I(2) 82%), anxiety with the consent process (SMD 0.01 (95% CI -0.21 to 0.23) I(2) 70%) and satisfaction with the consent process (SMD 0.12 (95% CI -0.09 to 0.32) I(2) 76%). Consultation length was increased in those studies with continuous data (mean increase 1.66 minutes (95% CI 0.82 to 2.50) I(2) 0%) and in the one study with non-parametric data (control 8.0 minutes versus intervention 11.9 minutes, interquartile range (IQR) of 4 to 11.9 and 7.2 to 15.0 respectively). There were limited data for other outcomes.In general, sensitivity analyses removing studies at high risk of bias made little difference to the overall results. 

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS

Informed consent is an important ethical and practical part of patient care.  We have identified efforts by researchers to investigate interventions which seek to improve information delivery and consideration of information to enhance informed consent.  The interventions used consistently improve patient knowledge, an important prerequisite for informed consent.  This is encouraging and these measures could be widely employed although we are not able to say with confidence which types of interventions are preferable. Our results should be interpreted with caution due to the high levels of heterogeneity associated with many of the main analyses although we believe there is broad evidence of beneficial outcomes for patients with the pragmatic application of interventions. Only one study attempted to measure informed consent as a unified concept.