The legal requirements for patient consent in Poland: A survey of doctors’ level of knowledge

Abstract

The legality of providing any medical intervention needs to be guarded by the requirement of a conscious and informed consent given by the patient. The legal requirements of granting such a consent in practice should apply not only to typical situations, when the patient is able to manifest his medical decision consciously, but also to more complicated cases where a patient cannot provide such a consent himself by the time the provision of service is given. This implies the need for the doctor to take actions specified by law, such as, but not limited to obtaining the consent of the guardianship court or intervene without the consent. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of knowledge of the currently in force Polish statutory requirements for legitimizing medical decisions in the relationships between physicians and patients. The study used anonymous surveys designed by the authors for the purpose of this study to test the level of knowledge of legal requirements regarding the principles under which patients provide consent to healthcare services and was conducted in two hospitals in Poland and Polish medical university. The survey results indicated that respondents do not possess sufficient understanding of the legal requirements for legitimizing acts or omissions of the physicians in the diagnostic and therapeutic process.