Assessment of the Quality of Informed Consent Process for Elective Gynaecological and Obstetrics Surgical Procedures at Ain Shams University Maternity Hospital: Cross Sectional Observational Study

Abstract Background: Informed consent is the process in which a health care provider educates a patient about the risks, bene-fits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention. The patient must be competent to make a voluntary decision about whether to undergo the procedure or intervention. The basic re-quirements for informed consent include patients’ competence and voluntariness as preconditions for informed consent, provi-sion of adequate and comprehensible information, finally, the patient consents to have the surgical procedure to be performed. Aim of Study: To assess the quality of informed consent process for elective gynaecological and obstetric surgery at Ain Shams University Maternity Hospital. Patients and Methods: The current cross-sectional obser-vational hospital-based study was conducted in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ain Shams University Maternity Hospital (ASUMH). In the period between December 2023 to March 2024 on 175 cases undergoing obstetrics and gynecolo-gy surgery. Results: The study showed majority of the patients had poor quality of informed consent prior to elective gynecolo-gy and Obstetrics surgery at Ain Shams University Maternity Hospital. Those with low education level, who had no knowl-edge about informed consent and did not know that consenting was voluntary, had misconception about consent, or required to have an interpreter during the consent process, with whom ver-bal interaction without illustration was used during the consent process, consented on ward, in cases where the consent process took less than 20 minutes, not asking questions during the con-senting process were likely to have poor quality informed con-sent. The result of current study showed the quality of informed consent given to the participants prior to elective surgery was poor in most of them (57.7%). Conclusion: This study suggests that the quality of in-formed consent process among patients undergoing elective gynaecological and obstetric surgery at is below the accepted national standard. The health workers did not create enough time to explain to the patients’ important details about their condition and management. Vital information about what to expect before and after surgery was hardly addressed. The pa-tients lack knowledge about informed consent process. They do not know that it’s their right to be informed about their medical condition, any forthcoming interventions and their decision is voluntary.