Surgical consent during the COVID-19 pandemic

Surgical consent during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, surgical practice may deviate with operative and non-operative management considered. Appropriate discussion of options with patients is paramount to quality surgical care. Intercollegiate and EAES guidelines recommend discussing and documenting risk of COVID-19 exposur...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of medicine and surgery Vol. 59; pp. 229 - 233
Main Authors: Rotimi, O., Beatson, K., Aderombi, A., Lam, W., Bajomo, O., Kukreja, N.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-11-2020
Elsevier
Subjects:
Audit
Consent
Coronavirus
Original Research
Surgical guidance
Audit
Surgical guidance
Coronavirus
Consent
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:During the COVID-19 pandemic, surgical practice may deviate with operative and non-operative management considered. Appropriate discussion of options with patients is paramount to quality surgical care. Intercollegiate and EAES guidelines recommend discussing and documenting risk of COVID-19 exposure in the consent process for patients undergoing surgery. Closed-loop audit of consent forms for patients undergoing emergency and elective surgical procedures. Interventions implemented included education of wider surgical teams. Data was collected during a one-week period for each cycle and analysed using Chi-squared test. In cycle 1, 6/17 (35.3%) case notes documented discussion of COVID-19 risk. Following intervention, compliance improved to 23/29 (79.3%) cases in cycle 2 and 33/45 (73.3%) cases in cycle 3. Pre-intervention, our consenting practice was non-compliant. Our interventions led to significant and sustained improvements in practice. We recommend provision of wider surgical team education to facilitate good consenting practice. •Surgical consent practice has changed as a result of COVID-19.•Patients should be consented for COVID-19 as this risk is now pertinent to all patients listed for surgery.•Simple interventions can be extremely effective in improving long-term consenting practice.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:2049-0801
2049-0801
DOI:10.1016/j.amsu.2020.10.011