ArticleQuality & safety in health care2004
Women's accounts of consenting to surgery: is consent a quality problem?
Article in Quality & safety in health care, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- The patient and clinician experience of informed consent for surgery: a systematic review of the qualitative evidence.BMC medical ethics · 2020Pooled it
- Interventions to promote informed consent for patients undergoing surgical and other invasive healthcare procedures.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2013Pooled it
- What a signature adds to the consent process.Surgical endoscopy · 2008Trial
- Augmenting research consent: should large language models (LLMs) be used for informed consent to clinical research?Research ethics · 2025Article
- Doctors' experiences on dealing with informed consent required for lifesaving interventions for pregnant women in Somalia.Frontiers in global women's health · 2025Article
- Consent-GPT: is it ethical to delegate procedural consent to conversational AI?Journal of medical ethics · 2024Article
- An instrument for assessing the quality of informed consent documents for elective procedures: development and testing.BMJ open · 2020Article
- Pre-post implementation survey of a multicomponent intervention to improve informed consent for caesarean section in Southern Malawi.BMJ open · 2020Article
- How Does the Patient React After Reading the Informed Consent Form of a Gynecological Surgery? A Qualitative Study.Revista brasileira de ginecologia e obstetricia : revista da Federacao Brasileira das Sociedades de Ginecologia e Obstetricia · 2018Article
- The consent process: Enabling or disabling patients' active participation?Health (London, England : 1997) · 2017Article
- When choice becomes limited: Women's experiences of delay in labour.Health (London, England : 1997) · 2017Article
- A survey on patients' knowledge and expectations during informed consent for spinal surgery: can we improve the shared decision-making process?Patient safety in surgery · 2016Article
- Informed consent for clinical treatment.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2012Review
- Request for Treatment: the evolution of consent.Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England · 2010Review
- Patients' perceptions of written consent: questionnaire study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2006Article
- Participating in a trial in a critical situation: a qualitative study in pregnancy.Quality & safety in health care · 2006Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundConsent has been placed at the centre of doctor-patient relationships. Attempts to improve the consent process in medicine have drawn on bioethical and legal traditions. Current approaches to consent emphasise the provision of information and have, in the UK, resulted in a single standardised format and process for both elective and emergency situations. Investigation of patients' perceptions and priorities are important in understanding the quality of the consent process.
methodsIn this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 women. Eleven had elective and 14 had emergency operations in obstetrics and gynaecology. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis was based on the constant comparative method.
resultsParticipants' perceptions of surgery strongly influenced the meanings they gave to consent. Some, particularly those undergoing elective operations, wanted surgery. Others were uncertain of their desire for surgery or felt that it was imposed on them. Consenting was interpreted as a ritualistic legal procedure. There was an overwhelming tendency to view consent as not primarily serving patients' needs, although some advantages of the consent process were identified. Accounts made no reference to ethics.
conclusionCountering paternalism will remain difficult to achieve if issues surrounding consent continue to be debated between professionals without due effort to reflect patients' own views and values and to appreciate the circumstances under which consent is sought.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.