The patient and clinician experience of informed consent for surgery: a systematic review of the qualitative evidence

. 2020 Jul 11;21:58. doi: 10.1186/s12910-020-00501-6

Finding	All but one patient wanted to know about the risk of major complication so as to make her own judgement about the balance of risks. Knowing about this would have made them less frightened if a major complication did arise and allowed people to make appropriate contingency plans should a complication arise. (U)
Illustration	“If you woke up from the operation and you were expecting a little scar there and then all of a sudden they’re telling me I’ve got a massive scar and you’re thinking ‘well, why? What’s going on?’ You’re going to panic, aren’t you? - “Well I think you know, it’s always nice to weigh the benefits against the risk and then at least we could have made that as an informed decision that could have some serious consequences. I don’t think my husband and I, we hadn’t sort of prepared for all that, so it could have been fairly devastating.” [22]

Finding

All but one patient wanted to know about the risk of major complication so as to make her own judgement about the balance of risks. Knowing about this would have made them less frightened if a major complication did arise and allowed people to make appropriate contingency plans should a complication arise. (U)

Illustration

“If you woke up from the operation and you were expecting a little scar there and then all of a sudden they’re telling me I’ve got a massive scar and you’re thinking ‘well, why? What’s going on?’ You’re going to panic, aren’t you? - “Well I think you know, it’s always nice to weigh the benefits against the risk and then at least we could have made that as an informed decision that could have some serious consequences. I don’t think my husband and I, we hadn’t sort of prepared for all that, so it could have been fairly devastating.” [22]