Types of Patients’ Right
Right of self-determination
Right to informed consent
Right to informed decision
Right to Informed choice
Right to refusal of treatment
the moral right to determine what is good for himself.
Right of self-determination
refers to the knowledge or information about and the consent to a particular form of medical treatment, before that treatment is administered
Right to informed consent
refers to the necessary information of and decision on a medical treatment before the latter is carried out.
Right to informed decision
refers to the necessary information a patient should know about a medical treatment or experiment so that a moral choice can be made. The patient has the right to be informed about all the possible alternatives and consequences.
Right to Informed choice
Four major elements of informed consent:
Competence
Disclosure
Comprehension
Voluntariness
this refers to a patient’s capacity for decision making
Competence
this refers to the content of what a patient is told or informed about during the consent negotiation.
Disclosure
this refers to whether the information given has been understood. Health cares have a professional language and are expected they need to translate their jargon so that it will be intelligible to their patients.
Comprehension
the patient must of his own free will agree to become a research subject as the case may be.
Voluntariness
the patient has the right to refuse treatment because of their religious convictions prohibit them from doing so.
Right to refusal of treatment
Methods of informed consent:
Written consent
Verbal consent
a consent form to be filled up and signed by a patient as he/she checks in for admission in a hospital
Written consent
is usually made after a physician has briefed the patient about the medical process to be undertaken.
Verbal consent
In emergency cases
(1) comatose or obtunded patients
(2) blind or illiterate patients;
(3) underage patients or those unable to understand the circumstances and
(4) language barrier patients.
