Development of patient’s informed consent form in the Department of Medicine, Photharam Hospital, Ratchaburi Province

Abstract

This study was operational research with the objective of improving the format of the patient’s consent form in the Department of Medicine, Photharam Hospital, Ratchaburi Province. The researcher has applied the Deming Cycle concept for the improvement of the working process. The research had been undertaken between 15th October 2558 B.E. and 15th February 2559 B.E. The studied sample were the “recorded” patient’s consent forms of patients who had received hospital care from the Department of Medicine. There were 2 groups of forms; 17 sets during the research period and 124 sets after the research period. The comparison between the “former form” and the “improved form” had been analyzed by using descriptive statistics; percentage, mean and Independent Two Sample t-test α=0.05

The study founded that the improved patient’s consent form was more congruent with the templates issued by the National Health Security Office and the legislation relating to health. The study found that during the experimental period, the accuracy scores of the improved patient’s consent form had been increased with a statistical significance of p=0.05. The accuracy score had been increased from 35.95% to 89.54%. During the post experimental period (operational period) the study found that 92.38% of the studied sample had a total score at the level of “very good” However the problem of “no specification of time” when recording the patient’s consent form were still found. The overall satisfaction of the personnel of three groups was at a “very good” level, (84.24%); specifically, the administrators (90%), medical records committee (85.72%) and operational personnel (77%).

Recommendation: there should be communication with the operational personnel in order to increase the understanding about the criteria of recording the patient’s consent forms, especially the recording of the time at which the recording was undertaken. There should be an expansion of the results of improvements in the patient’s consent form to other units of the hospital so that the process of informing the patient and the recording of the patient’s consent form would be unidirectional and in accord with the criteria issued by the National Health Security Office.