Assessment of patients' knowledge level regarding the informed consent from the ethical aspect

Informed consent is one of the fundamental personal rights for an individual to know and determine what will be done to his/her own body, and also for legalizing the procedure. The objective of this study is to determine the awareness level of patients about the patient rights and the written consent obtained in medical facilities before the treatment. In year 2015, the questionnaire consisting of 3 sections was conducted on 102 patients hospitalized in surgical departments of Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty Hospital of Istanbul University. The statistical analyses of this study were performed using SPSS 19.0 package program. Of the participants, 63 declared that they know what the informed consent means, 39 (38.1%) declared that they have not sufficient knowledge on this subject, while 74 (72.5%) of participants stated that they were informed about the risks and adverse effects of operation to be performed and 28 (27.4%) were not sufficiently informed. In this study, it was determined that the patients were not sufficiently informed about the informed consent, and that there still are words, meaning of which are not known by the patients. More sensitive approach of the professionals and administrators working at medical facilities to this matter would eliminate the risks from the legal and ethical aspects and also prevent the physicians from suffering from the legal sanctions.