Adherence to informed consent standards in Shiraz hospitals: matrons' perspective.

BACKGROUND Informed consent is an important part of the patients' rights and hospitals are assigned to obtain informed consent before any diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. Obtaining an informed consent enables patients to accept or reject their care or treatments and prevent future contentions among patients and medical staff. METHODS This survey was carried out during 2011-2. We assessed adherence of 33 Shiraz hospitals (governmental and non-governmental) to informed consent standards defined by Joint Commission International (JCI) Accreditation, USA. The questionnaire was designed using the Delphi method and then filled out by hospital matrons. We calculated valid percent frequency for each part of the questionnaire and compared these frequencies in governmental and non-governmental hospitals using analytical statistics. RESULTS Considering 63% of the hospitals that filled out the questionnaire, no statistically significant difference was observed between the governmental and non-governmental hospitals in adherence to informed consent standards. CONCLUSION This study shows a relatively acceptable adherence to standards about informed consent in Shiraz hospitals but the implementation seems not to be as satisfactory.