[Proposal of a common model for informed consent for interventional procedures in congenital heart disease patients]

Abstract

Background: A multidisciplinary study group involving physicians and jurists was established to review and approve an informed consent about the most frequent interventional procedures for congenital heart diseases.

Methods: The authors worked together with representatives of the Italian Society of Pediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Disease (SICP) Council and Jurist's expert in the field of health case-law. The final draft was shared with the major Italian centers involved in congenital interventional procedures and with AICCA, the Italian Patients Association of Congenital Heart Diseases - Adults and Children.

Results: At the end of this review process, a final informed consent form was developed for the most frequent procedures performed in our catheterization laboratories. All of them consist of two parts: a general statement and a procedure-related one.

Conclusions: The work performed by this multidisciplinary study group, under the supervision of the SICP, resulted in a new dedicated informed consent about interventional procedures in the field of congenital cardiology, taking into account the new legal requests. This informed consent is intended to be both a document that can be used as such and a document from which to derive a specific document for each center. We believe that using similar informed consents in all Congenital Heart Disease Centers or at least have informed consents all inspired by the same setting, could be a further improvement in taking care of the patients and their families.