Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making
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Twenty-five years of appellate court decisions about informed consent in three influential states were examined to address four issues: the criteria used to define adequate informed consent; trends in court decisions; parallels between court decision making and decision analysis; the contribution of decision analytic concepts to defining "reasonable" medical informed consent. Court standards have evolved in three phases: the "medical community" standard before 1972, the "reasonable person" standard since 1972, and recent inroads toward developing an "individual preference" standard. ⋯ Jurists and physicians should consider whether the legal system should adopt a decision analytic perspective in the doctrine of informed consent. Researchers should address issues raised by use of decision analysis for communication between the physician and the patient.