[Preoperative information and informed consent in surgically treated patients]

Abstract

Objective: Providing information is an important part of the doctor-patient relationship. In hospital practice today, patients and/or their families are sometimes given seriously inadequate information. Our aim was to analyze the quality of information received by patients before anesthesia and surgery.

Patients and methods: The opinion of 300 patients (141 men and 159 women) at Hospital Universitario "Virgen de la Arrixaca" (Murcia, Spain) was studied from 1993 to 1995. The sample was a stratified random one with sex and age as the classifying variables. Surgery was scheduled in 150 cases and emergency in 150. Mean age was 42.88 +/- 1.20 years (SD = 20.84; range 3-90 years).

Results: Patients were unfamiliar with risks of surgery and anesthesia in 19% and 18.3% of the cases, respectively. No information was received by 69.3% of patients regarding surgical risks and an even higher 75% of patients received no information on risks of anesthesia. In 3.6% of scheduled operations, neither patient nor family members were required to sign a consent from, though these cases involved patients under 18 years of age. For emergency surgery this percentage was 5.4%. Lack-of-information percentages are higher in operations requiring local or regional anesthesia.

Conclusions: We must underline the poor quality of patient knowledge about medical procedures and the scarce information provided. Even fewer patients known about the risks of anesthesia. A patient's signing of an informed consent form does not correspond to real knowledge of the risks involved in the procedure.