Guidelines relating to consent of patients to medical intervention

Abstract

Recognition of the fact that the patient has a right to be involved in decisions about medical interventions has been emphasized by recommendations proposed by the European Regional Working Group of the World Health Organisation in 1985 (revised 1990), which held that no medical intervention (by which is meant all forms of medical examination, investigation and treatment) may be administered without the free and informed consent of the patient: The elector is ethically obliged to give sufficient information to the patient s6 that s/he is in a position to give or to withhold consent in the full awareness of the facts. The information given must be understandable and include their nature and severity of the illness, the advantages and the risks of the proposed intervention, and the consequences of refusing it. [excerpt from the Introduction]