知情同意几乎是不可能的

IF 7.6 2区 医学 Q1 HEMATOLOGY HemaSphere Pub Date : 2024-09-15 DOI:10.1002/hem3.70002
Louise Caldwell, Stephen P. Hibbs
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A study of over one thousand patients on palliative chemotherapy for lung or colorectal cancer found that the majority did not understand the intent of their treatment.<span><sup>1</sup></span> While our consent practices may be acceptable within legal and bureaucratic norms, how often do patients truly understand the treatments we recommend and prescribe?</p><p>Some of the difficulty lies in the approach or capacity of the clinician. The consent process can become rushed, perfunctory and at times transactional. Even the terminology of ‘taking’ consent is telling, evoking a rushed conversation to extract a signature on a consent form so that treatment can commence.</p><p>Clinicians often draw arbitrarily sharp lines around decisions that require written consent and those that do not. The <i>written</i> component may be less important than the ‘hard stop’ it provides to clinicians, requiring a detailed conversation with the patient before proceeding with treatment. 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Can a person ever truly fathom the potential risks that accompany a treatment, when hope demands they believe they will escape them?</p><p>Some consent conversations are particularly demanding to both the clinician and the patient. In UK haemato-oncology practice, patients with a new diagnosis of acute leukaemia are invited to consent to whole-genome sequencing (WGS) as part of clinical care. The NHS Genomic Medicine Service provides a structured consent form for the purpose of this discussion, in which a patient must understand that WGS is unlikely to affect their treatment, that testing could lead to unexpected findings, and that these findings may have implications for the health of family members.<span><sup>3</sup></span> The patient must understand this while coming to terms with a new acute leukaemia diagnosis, the consent process for intensive chemotherapy, and the possibility of imminent death. They may no longer be alive when the genomic results—including ‘unexpected information’—become available to their families. How often does truly informed consent occur during these complicated, uncertain and distressing conversations?</p><p>Are the barriers to truly informed consent possible to overcome? Simple measures can go some distance. Videos explaining the benefits, risks and experience of treatment are an accessible resource for people of any literacy level and can be rewatched ahead of consent discussions, reducing the fear of missing something. And by involving loved ones in consent conversations we acknowledge that life decisions - for all of us - are made through dialogue and relationships with others. Additional barriers encountered by patients with limited language proficiency can be overcome by investment in translation and interpretation. 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摘要

最后,承认知情同意是困难的--有时几乎是不可能的--这就对患者的完全选择权总是优先的观念提出了挑战。许多患者并不认为临床医生是冷漠的信息传播者,也不认为自己是知情的医疗消费者,而是寻求值得信赖和关爱的人,无论采取何种治疗方法,这些人都会与他们同甘共苦。斯蒂芬-P.-希布斯(Stephen P. Hibbs)由惠康基金会(资助编号 223 500/Z/21/Z)资助的 HARP 博士研究奖学金支持。本出版物未获得任何资助。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。

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Informed consent is almost impossible

Informed consent underpins the practice of medicine. Beyond signing a form, the consent process provides both space and time for patients to gain a better understanding of the practicalities of the treatment and to ask questions of their clinician. If done well, informed consent can enable patient autonomy, facilitate a better understanding of the short- and long-term implications of treatments, and share power with patients in the decision-making process.

But many of us will have encountered situations where ‘informed consent’ has been recorded, yet a myeloma patient is later surprised and distressed to learn that their chemotherapy was never expected to cure them. A study of over one thousand patients on palliative chemotherapy for lung or colorectal cancer found that the majority did not understand the intent of their treatment.1 While our consent practices may be acceptable within legal and bureaucratic norms, how often do patients truly understand the treatments we recommend and prescribe?

Some of the difficulty lies in the approach or capacity of the clinician. The consent process can become rushed, perfunctory and at times transactional. Even the terminology of ‘taking’ consent is telling, evoking a rushed conversation to extract a signature on a consent form so that treatment can commence.

Clinicians often draw arbitrarily sharp lines around decisions that require written consent and those that do not. The written component may be less important than the ‘hard stop’ it provides to clinicians, requiring a detailed conversation with the patient before proceeding with treatment. Any chemotherapy—of whatever level of intensity—requires a formal written consent process. In contrast, steroids for immune thrombocytopenia, transfusions in sickle cell disease, or anticoagulation incurs significant risk, but consent practices for these interventions are minimal or inconsistent.2

Aside from hurried clinicians, patients face other challenges during consent conversations. In fraught and high-stakes situations where patients are reeling from a new diagnosis of life-limiting cancer or are overwhelmed by symptoms of their disease, the intricacies of the treatment they are being consented for may seem marginal or irrelevant. The intensity and immediacy of illness can distort a patient's ability to ‘hear’ the risks of the treatment. Some may approach treatment with complete optimism, suppressing any imagining of risk or failure. Others may be unable to perceive any sort of future whilst confronting an overwhelming present. Can a person ever truly fathom the potential risks that accompany a treatment, when hope demands they believe they will escape them?

Some consent conversations are particularly demanding to both the clinician and the patient. In UK haemato-oncology practice, patients with a new diagnosis of acute leukaemia are invited to consent to whole-genome sequencing (WGS) as part of clinical care. The NHS Genomic Medicine Service provides a structured consent form for the purpose of this discussion, in which a patient must understand that WGS is unlikely to affect their treatment, that testing could lead to unexpected findings, and that these findings may have implications for the health of family members.3 The patient must understand this while coming to terms with a new acute leukaemia diagnosis, the consent process for intensive chemotherapy, and the possibility of imminent death. They may no longer be alive when the genomic results—including ‘unexpected information’—become available to their families. How often does truly informed consent occur during these complicated, uncertain and distressing conversations?

Are the barriers to truly informed consent possible to overcome? Simple measures can go some distance. Videos explaining the benefits, risks and experience of treatment are an accessible resource for people of any literacy level and can be rewatched ahead of consent discussions, reducing the fear of missing something. And by involving loved ones in consent conversations we acknowledge that life decisions - for all of us - are made through dialogue and relationships with others. Additional barriers encountered by patients with limited language proficiency can be overcome by investment in translation and interpretation. Training for clinicians in consent practices could also be reimagined as something more reflective, responsive to real-world patient encounters, and ongoing throughout a clinical career. In some other universe, these conversations would be unhurried.

Even then, genuinely informed consent at the outset of treatment would sometimes remain unattainable, either because of a patient's emotional or cognitive state, or the complex nature of the treatment or investigation. Without undermining the principle of informed consent, we can acknowledge how difficult it is to achieve through current approaches, even when these meet bureaucratic and legal requirements. If consent is envisaged as a journey, then this creates the opportunity for it to be revisited as a patient comes to terms with both their prognosis and treatment—do we have consent to continue?

Finally, recognising that informed consent is difficult—sometimes almost impossible—challenges the notion that total patient choice is always the priority. Many patients do not view clinicians as dispassionate purveyors of information nor themselves as informed healthcare consumers, but instead seek trustworthy and caring individuals who will remain present with them in their suffering, whatever treatment is pursued.

Both authors conceptualised the article, wrote the initial draft and critically reviewed and revised the article. Both authors agreed to the final version.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Stephen P. Hibbs is supported by a HARP doctoral research fellowship, funded by the Wellcome Trust (Grant number 223 500/Z/21/Z). No funding was received for this publication.

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来源期刊
HemaSphere
HemaSphere Medicine-Hematology
CiteScore
6.10
自引率
4.50%
发文量
2776
审稿时长
7 weeks
期刊介绍: HemaSphere, as a publication, is dedicated to disseminating the outcomes of profoundly pertinent basic, translational, and clinical research endeavors within the field of hematology. The journal actively seeks robust studies that unveil novel discoveries with significant ramifications for hematology. In addition to original research, HemaSphere features review articles and guideline articles that furnish lucid synopses and discussions of emerging developments, along with recommendations for patient care. Positioned as the foremost resource in hematology, HemaSphere augments its offerings with specialized sections like HemaTopics and HemaPolicy. These segments engender insightful dialogues covering a spectrum of hematology-related topics, including digestible summaries of pivotal articles, updates on new therapies, deliberations on European policy matters, and other noteworthy news items within the field. Steering the course of HemaSphere are Editor in Chief Jan Cools and Deputy Editor in Chief Claire Harrison, alongside the guidance of an esteemed Editorial Board comprising international luminaries in both research and clinical realms, each representing diverse areas of hematologic expertise.
期刊最新文献
Bortezomib before and after high-dose therapy in transplant-eligible patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma: Long-term overall survival after more than 10 years of follow-up from the phase III HOVON-65/GMMG-HD4 trial The incidence and clinical significance of monoclonal and oligoclonal protein bands in multiple myeloma patients after BCMA–CAR-T cell therapy: A retrospective study based on LEGEND-2 Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance with multiple paraproteins: A population-based screening study A single-chain variable fragment-based bispecific T-cell activating antibody against CD117 enables T-cell mediated lysis of acute myeloid leukemia and hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells IL-11—An aging-related cytokine with opportunities for regulating hematopoiesis
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