Knowledge, Opinions and Attitude of Surgeons in Saudi Arabia toward Informed Surgical Consent

Abstract

Background: Informed consent has become a vital factor for the clinical treatment of modern practice in the medical field, it is participating in legal, ethical and administrative compliance side. However, informed consent is variably applicable and rarely fulfills its theoretical ideal. Disclosure of adequate information is very important before signing informed consent. It is important to make patient enable to take a proper decision with good knowledge about his/her case. Informed consent for the surgical procedure is consent that taken from the patient before surgical operations and invasive procedures after explaining advantages and disadvantages. Getting patient's signature for the consent of operations and the surgical procedure is surgeon's job. The opinion of the surgeon about informed consent is important, as that may affect the performance of surgeon in explaining procedure with its risks and benefits. Aim: Assessment of knowledge, opinion, and attitude of surgeons towards informed consents. Find out how to improve the quality of informed consent from surgeons' suggestions. Method: This cross-sectional study is questionnaire-based study. Our target was to reach many surgeons in Saudi Arabia with different specialties, different status and from different hospitals. We take our sample using random sampling technique. We selected surgeons from each hospital that our data collector can reach and enter easily. Collection of data was done by interview. Our questionnaire contained four parts in addition to demographic data part. The first part was asking about surgeons' opinions regarding informed surgical consent process. The second part was responsible for inquire about obtaining informed surgical consent. The third part is about the refusal to sign informed surgical consent. Last part is to ask about surgeons' suggestions to improve informed surgical consent. Result: Total number of respondents was 140 (Response rate is 93.3%). Around 34% of participants agreed that surgeons don't give adequate information about the surgical procedure. 33.6% insisted to know about their surgery. After asking each surgeon about the importance of informed surgical consent they selected the following answers in descending order; informing patients about advantages, hazards and alternatives (81.4%), Medico-legal importance (79.3%), decision taking about procedure (72.1%), hospital policy (50.7%) and surgical tradition (19.3%). Most of the doctors (85%) complained that sometimes, their patients refused to sign consent. Fear was the most common cause of singing consent refusal according to opinions of 62.9% of surgeons. Conclusion: Surgeons in Saudi Arabia have acceptable knowledge about informed surgical consent and how to obtain it. But still there were some opinions of surgeons opposite to what is practiced, and also some of them practiced something not ideal while obtaining informed surgical consents. However, most of the surgeons know the importance of consent and what is important to be disclosed in it. In general, the fre...

Current state of ethical challenges reported in Saudi Arabia: a systematic review & bibliometric analysis from 2010 to 2021

“…Some saw consent as just a preoperative routine or simply signing a document because the consent process is strange to Saudi psychology. The majority were against the use of consent for all surgical procedures [ 54 ].…”

“…However, doctors' and patients' levels of awareness and adherence to these guidelines in Saudi Arabia remain unclear and controversial. Thus, these findings create a basis for introducing formal informed consent training to make written information more accessible to doctors and patients [ 6 , 54 ].…”

“…Half of the participants wished to be involved in decisionmaking One third had no time to comprehend the information provided A higher quality of informed consent was predicted when explained by the doctor About half of the participants believed that their decision was not necessary because the doctor had already decided for them Alsaihati et al [54] Surgeons (n = 140) from Saudi Arabia…”

“…Remarkably, a study by Alsaihati et al (2017) among n = 140 surgeons in Saudi Arabia found that while there was sufficient knowledge about informed consent to surgery and how to obtain it, most surgeons did not fully inform patients about the procedure before obtaining consent. Some saw consent as just a preoperative routine or simply signing a document because the consent process is strange to Saudi psychology.…”

Tüp Bebek Uygulamalarında Çiftlerin Aydınlatılmış Onamı: Türkiye' de Sınırlı Bir Çalışma

“…3,17,18 However, it has been shown in studies that verbal information was not given to the patients or it was not done at an adequate level. It was observed that 34% of surgical patients in Saudi Arabia 19 20.6% of orthopedic patients in Turkey 20 , and 13.6% of patients undergoing cardiac surgery 21 were not informed. The findings of the studies show that there is a decrease in the proportion of uninformed patients in Turkey and also in other countries.…”