• Reg Anesth Pain Med · Aug 2019

    Say what? Patients have poor immediate memory of major risks of interscalene block disclosed during the informed consent discussion.

    • Johnny Wei Bai, Faraj W W Abdallah, Melanie Cohn, Stephanie Ladowski, Poorna Madhusudan, and Richard Brull.
    • Department of Anesthesia, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
    • Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2019 Aug 23.

    BackgroundPoor memory of disclosed risks can undermine informed consent and create medicolegal challenges. The extent to which patients remember the risks of peripheral nerve blockade following the informed consent discussion is unknown. This prospective cohort study evaluated patients' immediate memory of risks related to interscalene block (ISB) that were disclosed during the preoperative informed consent discussion.MethodsUsing a standardized script, patients scheduled for arthroscopic shoulder surgery were informed of the risks of ISB by an anesthesiologist in the preoperative assessment clinic. Immediately thereafter, consenting participants were asked to identify the risks of ISB from a printed list of nine true risks (four major and five minor) and nine 'distractor' items, which were unrelated adverse events and not disclosed. The primary outcome was the proportion of participants who remembered all four true major risks including long-term nerve damage, seizure, life-threatening event, and damage to the covering of the lung.ResultsAmong 125 participants, only 26 (21%) remembered all four major risks of ISB. The mean number of major risks remembered was 2±1 out of 4. Fifteen (12%) participants remembered all nine true risks. The mean number of true risks remembered was 6±2 out of 9. Multivariable analysis revealed that participants' self-rated assessment of their memory was not associated with actual recall.ConclusionPatients have poor immediate memory of the major risks related to ISB disclosed during the informed consent discussion. Under the present study conditions, the validity of the informed consent process for patients undergoing ISB may be undermined.© American Society of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine 2019. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.