Informed consent in nursing [Hemşirelikte aydinlatilmiş onam]

Abstract

Informed consent is a documentation that is based on ethical principles like autonomy, proper conduct, usefulness and patient's right to prefer his/her mode of therapy. This principle, that forms the basis for the doctor, nurse and patient relationship, demands that information should be explained to the patient in a comprehensible way and alms to protect human respect and self-fulfillness. The research is planned in a descriptive way in order to determine the role of nurses in the process of obtaining informed consent from patients. A questionnaire of 19 items are filled in May-June 2003 by 179 nurses who had accepted to join the research among 218 nurses that work in a public hospital in Istanbul. The results are presented in percenteges and analysed by chi-squre test. The demographic characteristics of the nurses were as follows: 46.4% of the nurses were 19-24 years old, 58.7% have 1-7 years of experience, 48% is a graduate of a high school of nursing and 40.2% works in the intensive care unit. According to nurses 64.2% of the patients give their consent after being persuaded. When obtaining informed consent from patients, 76.5% of the nurses pay attention to that information provived is clear and comprehensible whereas 70.4% pay attention to the comprehension and perception capacity of the patient. During the informative process aiming to obtain the consent of the patient, 72.1% of the nurses explain the usefulness of the treatments that would be applied, 65.9% explain the aim, 62% explain how the treatment would be performed. 60.3% of the nurses stated that obtaining informed consent from patients, suggested that the patients have something to say about the treatments that will affect their bodies and 49.7% percent asserted that this would protect them from the effects of treatments that the patients would not want to have. The procedure of obtaining informed consents from the patients after being informed by the nurses reached statistically significant levels as for diagnostic procedures (76.5%)(P=0.000), administration of treatment (65.9%)(P=0.000), patient care (58.7%)(P=0.002), and patients' acceptance of the treatment (22.1%) (P=0.024) As a result, most of the nurses get the consent by informing the patients and usually provide information about practices that will help diagnosis, treatment practices, patient care and patients' admittance. Obtaining the informed consent from patients suggests that the patients have something to say about the treatments that will affect their bodies and this procedure will protect them from the treatments that they would not want to undergo.