Status of medical information and patient consent in orthopedic surgery and traumatology at the University Hospital of Burgos (period 2017-2018)

Introduction

The principle of autonomy is the basis of the informed consent concept. Informed consent is a patient´s right consisting in prior to the medical intervention being carried out on his body, he must express his agreement that it must be preceded by the proper information that allows him to decide according to his interests. In this work, our objective was to know the status of medical information and informed consent of the patient in the Traumatology and Orthopedic Surgery Service of the University Hospital of Burgos.

Material and methods

An anonymous questionnaire was prepared and distributed among 647 orthopedic surgery and trauma patients at the University Hospital of Burgos. Subsequently, a descriptive, cross-sectional, observational quantitative study was carried out. The association of sociodemographic variables with the responses to the questionnaire items was studied.

Results

Only 28.9% of the patients know that information is a right, but the majority (97.3%) expressed the need to receive information on risks and complications of the treatment and consider that the information does not increase fear or anxiety (63.4%). The majority stated that they were informed about the care performance (98.1%), understanding the explanations received (98.0%). The time used was sufficient (73.7%). In general, the information received was rated as sufficient (89.8).

Conclusions

Most of the patients felt informed and considered that the time that the doctor had had for this was sufficient.