Abstract

Background: Informed Consent should be considered as essential part of clinical practice in adult as well as in pediatric settings. The scenario of informed consent in pediatric clinical settings varies because minors are legally considered incompetent to provide decisions that have legal bindings regarding healthcare. Research Objectives: The objectives of this study are to understand the importance of Informed Consent for Clinical Treatment in Pediatric settings from parents perspective; explore the current practice of Informed Consent obtained for clinical treatment in Pediatric setting of developing country hospital identify factors associated with the practice of obtaining IC; and recognize involvement of child in decision making process i.e. assent. Research Design: This is Descriptive Exploratory Single Center study that reveals inadequacies in the process of informed consent in pediatric settings. Data was obtained from parents of pediatric patients admitted in pediatric intensive care unit for at least 24 hours Data was obtained from 128 participants. Ethical Considerations: The research was approved by institutional ethics review committee and verbal informed consent was obtained from all study participants. All parents who agreed to participate in research were assured that their responses would remain confidential and would not affect their child clinical treatment in any way. Findings: Most participants were satisfied by current informed consent process. 89% of parents disagreed over involvement of child in decision making process for clinical treatment i.e. assent. Discussion: Previous studies done in Pakistani context on adult population reveals inadequate process of informed consent and level of illiteracy, language barrier, insufficient time provision for signing informed consent, poverty, power deferential and oppressive mind as factors hindering meaningful consent. Conclusion: Our pilot project suggests general satisfaction of parents with current process which raises three important questions i.e. are we getting better? Is pediatrics different than adult? And are parents satisfied with an inadequate process?