• J A Pérez-Moreno, M D Pérez-Cárceles, E Osuna, and A Luna.
• Unidad Docente de Medicina Legal, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Murcia, Espinardo.
• Rev Esp Anestesiol Reanim. 1998 Apr 1; 45 (4): 130-5.

ObjectiveProviding information is an important part of the doctor-patient relationship. In hospital practice today, patients and/or their families are sometimes given seriously inadequate information. Our aim was to analyze the quality of information received by patients before anesthesia and surgery.Patients And MethodsThe opinion of 300 patients (141 men and 159 women) at Hospital Universitario "Virgen de la Arrixaca" (Murcia, Spain) was studied from 1993 to 1995. The sample was a stratified random one with sex and age as the classifying variables. Surgery was scheduled in 150 cases and emergency in 150. Mean age was 42.88 +/- 1.20 years (SD = 20.84; range 3-90 years).ResultsPatients were unfamiliar with risks of surgery and anesthesia in 19% and 18.3% of the cases, respectively. No information was received by 69.3% of patients regarding surgical risks and an even higher 75% of patients received no information on risks of anesthesia. In 3.6% of scheduled operations, neither patient nor family members were required to sign a consent from, though these cases involved patients under 18 years of age. For emergency surgery this percentage was 5.4%. Lack-of-information percentages are higher in operations requiring local or regional anesthesia.ConclusionsWe must underline the poor quality of patient knowledge about medical procedures and the scarce information provided. Even fewer patients known about the risks of anesthesia. A patient's signing of an informed consent form does not correspond to real knowledge of the risks involved in the procedure.

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