Perception about informed consent for surgical procedures as part of patient safety practice among service providers and patients in Addis Ababa hospitals, 2017
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2017-10
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Background: Informed consent is defined as voluntary authorization, by a patient or research
subject, with full comprehension of the risks involved, for diagnostic or investigative procedures,
and for medical and surgical treatment.This voluntary authorization of patient to receive
medical/surgical treatments are often violated in different health care institution. The utilization
of the informed consent procedure by providers are determined by different factors.
Objective: The study objective is to assess perception of Informed Consent and Patient Safety
Practices about Surgical Procedures among Service Providers and Patients in Addis Ababa.
Method: Facility based mixed study with both quantitative and qualitative designs was
conducted from May14, to June 14, 2017. For the quantitative part, a cross sectional study design
was used, data was gathered from 338 patients admitted to the surgical wards, and review
documents from 258 post-operative patients participated in decision of surgical procedure for
comprehensive information of informed consent in selected hospitals of Addis Ababa. For
qualitative study an interviewer guided in-depth interview was used for data collection during the
same period during quantitative data collection to explore patient safety practice and
implementation of information about surgical procedures from physicians and service providers.
Result: From providers’ perspectives, patient safety practices are not fully implemented. There was
statistically significant association between awareness on surgical informed consent and being
widowed, higher education and occupational being students. There is no statistically association
between age, sex and residential area with surgical informed consent. The odds of being
widowed/separated among participants for informed surgical consent was 8.2 times higher than
those who had not married [AOR=8.167 CI (1.414- 47.182. Patients whose higher education
were almost two times likely to surgical informed consent than those with not educated
[AOR=2.033 CI (1.0344-3.998)]. Being occupational student was three point eight times more
likely to surgical informed consent than professional workers 3.793(1.161-12.387) [AOR=3.793
CI(1.161-12.387)].
Conclusion: Surgeons seemed to have good understanding of the requirement and process of
informed consent but, Informed consent is not fully implemented to its standard. Patients are inadequately informed on the risk, alternatives and complications related to surgery. The more educated patient had better understand of the essence and practice of surgical informed consent policy.
Description
Keywords
patient safety