Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T16:23:48.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Informed consent: what should we be doing?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2014

Jenny Hewison
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Louise Bryant
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Sean Kehoe
Affiliation:
John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
Lyn Chitty
Affiliation:
University College Hospital, London
Tessa Homfray
Affiliation:
St George’s University of London
Get access

Summary

Introduction: consent, choices and decisions

The concept of informed consent is central to the delivery of ethical healthcare services. Informed consent starts from the assumption that, following the provision of appropriate information, and based on his or her expertise, a clinician recommends a course of action to which the individual is asked to consent. Informing patients about the potential risks and consequences of a medical procedure is now considered essential to good practice and psychological preparation for such procedures has been shown to be linked to improved patient outcomes. Within reproductive genetic services, however, the term informed choice has come to be preferred over informed consent. Choosing to have prenatal screening, for example for Down syndrome, is not directly equivalent to consenting to a surgical procedure or even screening for conditions such as breast cancer, although many of the issues are related.

In contrast to informed consent, an informed choice starts from the assumption that, once appropriate information has been provided, the course of action should be chosen by the patient rather than the clinician. In most cases, the only therapeutic intervention on offer following a diagnosis of abnormality via prenatal testing is termination of pregnancy. For this reason, most clinicians accept that prenatal testing choices should reflect the values of the individual woman and her partner. Testing policy and related guidelines reflect this viewpoint and require that information about the testing process should support individual choice by being balanced and non-directive.

Type
Chapter
Information
Reproductive Genetics , pp. 205 - 216
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×