Contents

Disclaimer

Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up to date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulations. The authors and the publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this work. Except where otherwise stated, drug dosages and recommendations are for the non-pregnant adult who is not breastfeeding.

Show Summary Details
Page of

Medico-legal and ethical issues 

Medico-legal and ethical issues
Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD MEDICINE ONLINE (www.oxfordmedicine.com). © Oxford University Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Medicine Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 27 February 2021

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.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Medicine Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.