Identifying strategies to improve the informed consent process for therapy

Abstract

Informed consent in clinical practice is ubiquitous. It is a pre-requisite to progressing the health of every patient worldwide. Informed consent is affected by many different factors. Whilst variation in practice exists, there is potential for shortfalls, which can impact the patient outcome and result in significant financial outlay from medico-legal dispute. With over 300 million operations being performed each year, I recognised that even a small improvement in the informed consent process could result in significant benefit for all stakeholders. Therefore, I sought to identify strategies to improve the decision making process for adult patients (> 18 years old) with capacity undergoing invasive interventions primarily in the elective setting.

I conducted a large systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials of interventions designed to improve the informed consent process for therapy with further subgroup meta-analysis on commonly used informed consent interventions.

This thesis highlights the trends of where and how informed consent research has been conducted over the past 30 years alongside an updated evidence base for the use of written, non-interactive audio-visual (NIAV), and interactive audio-visual (IAV) interventions.

Date of Award	Jul 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Stephen Kirk (Supervisor) & Mike Clarke (Supervisor)