Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37428760›Full record

ArticlePloS one2023

How informed is informed consent?-Evaluating the quality of informed consent among surgical patients in a tertiary care hospital in Nepal.

Sunil Basukala, Oshan Shrestha, Niranjan Thapa, Sagun Karki, Ayushma Pandit, Bikash Bikram Thapa, Anup Thapa

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
10citing papers in PubMed
6.6field-weighted citation impact, top 3% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

10 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Ethical Challenges in Research Involving Hospitalized Patients: A Phenomenological Study.Health care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy · 2026
    Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Sunil BasukalaDepartment of Surgery, Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Oshan ShresthaCollege of Medicine, Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.ORCID 0000-0002-8655-9168
Niranjan ThapaCollege of Medicine, Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Sagun KarkiCollege of Medicine, Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Ayushma PanditCollege of Medicine, Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Bikash Bikram ThapaDepartment of Surgery, Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Anup ThapaDepartment of Surgery, Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Nepalese Army Institute of Health Services · NP

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundInformed consent-taking is a part of clinical practice that has ethical and legal aspects attached to it. This protects the autonomy of the patients by providing complete information regarding the rationale, modality, potential risks, benefits, and alternatives of the planned procedure to the patients. This enables the patients to make the right decision for themselves and their care. This study aims to find out if the informed consent-taking process has ensured the active participation of the patients or the next of kin in the decision-making. MATERIALS AND

methodsThis is a prospective cross-sectional study conducted in a military healthcare institution among patients undergoing major surgical procedures from July 2022 to October 2022. Ethical clearance was obtained before the commencement of this study. A structured questionnaire was prepared, and the collected data was refined in Excel and imported into SPSS for analysis.

resultsA total of 350 individuals of mean age 47.95 ± 16.057 years were part of this study. The majority of the respondents were married, literate, and family by beneficiary category. All of the respondents received and signed the consent form. About 77% of the respondents read it completely, and 95.4% of them reported that it was understandable. The majority of the patients did not know who was going to perform the surgery, the alternatives to the planned treatment, the benefits of the surgery, or the outcome of non-treatment. On the patient satisfaction scale, 16.28% of the participants agreed that they were satisfied with the informed consent-taking process.

conclusionDeficiencies in the informed consent-taking process were the lack of dissemination of adequate information on the nature, duration, pros and cons, post-operative state, and alternative of the planned procedure. A well-structured format of the consent form that is specific to a particular procedure should be adopted, and various alternatives to it must be disseminated to the patient or the next of kin to improve the quality of the informed consent-taking process.

Indexed as

Informed ConsentAdultCross-Sectional StudiesHumansMiddle AgedNepalProspective StudiesSurveys and QuestionnairesTertiary Care Centers

Identifiers

PMID37428760
PMCPMC10332608
OpenAlexW4383763295

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.