- Section 1 ICU organization and management
- Part 1.1 The intensive care unit
- Part 1.2 Communication
- Part 1.3 Training
- Part 1.4 Safety and quality
- Part 1.5 Governance
- Part 1.6 Research
- Part 1.7 Medico-legal and ethical issues
- Chapter 25 Informed consent in the ICU
- Chapter 26 Patient rights in the ICU
- Chapter 27 Medico-legal liability in critical care
- Part 1.8 Critical illness risk prediction
- Section 2 Pharmacotherapeutics
- Section 3 Resuscitation
- Section 4 The respiratory system
- Section 5 The cardiovascular system
- Section 6 The gastrointestinal system
- Section 7 Nutrition
- Section 8 The renal system
- Section 9 The neurological system
- Section 10 The metabolic and endocrine systems
- Section 11 The haematological system
- Section 12 The skin and connective tissue
- Section 13 Infection
- Section 14 Inflammation
- Section 15 Poisoning
- Section 16 Trauma
- Section 17 Physical disorders
- Section 18 Pain and sedation
- Section 19 General surgical and obstetric intensive care
- Section 20 Specialized intensive care
- Section 21 Recovery from critical illness
- Section 22 End-of-life care
(p. 107) Medico-legal and ethical issues
The doctrine of informed consent is an important concept in medical care, but presents challenges in the critical care setting, where patients may have diminished capacity to provide their own informed consent. The elements of informed consent include adequate disclosure of information, cognitive capacity of individuals to make decisions, and the voluntary nature of such decisions. Currently, there are no universally accepted procedures regarding capacity assessment, especially in critically-ill patients. Such assessments remain subjective, but this chapter provides some guidelines on the subjective assessment of such capacity. When it is determined that patient lacks decision making capacity to provide consent, several mechanisms exist by which their autonomy can still be respected, including following any existing advance directives or family members or friends’ moral authority to make decisions for patients, based on either the substituted standard or the best-interests standard. Informed consent issues in the emergency clinical situations and in the context of research are also discussed.
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- Section 1 ICU organization and management
- Part 1.1 The intensive care unit
- Part 1.2 Communication
- Part 1.3 Training
- Part 1.4 Safety and quality
- Part 1.5 Governance
- Part 1.6 Research
- Part 1.7 Medico-legal and ethical issues
- Chapter 25 Informed consent in the ICU
- Chapter 26 Patient rights in the ICU
- Chapter 27 Medico-legal liability in critical care
- Part 1.8 Critical illness risk prediction
- Section 2 Pharmacotherapeutics
- Section 3 Resuscitation
- Section 4 The respiratory system
- Section 5 The cardiovascular system
- Section 6 The gastrointestinal system
- Section 7 Nutrition
- Section 8 The renal system
- Section 9 The neurological system
- Section 10 The metabolic and endocrine systems
- Section 11 The haematological system
- Section 12 The skin and connective tissue
- Section 13 Infection
- Section 14 Inflammation
- Section 15 Poisoning
- Section 16 Trauma
- Section 17 Physical disorders
- Section 18 Pain and sedation
- Section 19 General surgical and obstetric intensive care
- Section 20 Specialized intensive care
- Section 21 Recovery from critical illness
- Section 22 End-of-life care