Informed consent for tonsillectomy: Do parents comprehend the information we provide?

Abstract Objective Informed consent is an important part of the surgical process. Based on our clinical experience, we hypothesized that parents providing consent for their children's tonsillectomy do not comprehend all the information that is given to them by the operating surgeon at the time of a conventional consent process. Materials and methods Parents whose children were scheduled for tonsillectomy with or without adenoidectomy and/or tympanostomy tubes insertion were enrolled. Within one hour after the consent process, they were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to collect demographic data and to evaluate how much of the information that was given to them was actually understood. Results Ninety-seven parents were enrolled between October 2011 and March 2013. The average percentage of correct answers (score) for the 16 multiple-choice questions was 76.3%. The average scores were 84.8% for the native Hebrew-speaking parents and 71.9% for the parents whose first language was other than Hebrew ( p p Conclusion The current conventional method of obtaining informed consent for tonsillectomy is inadequate, as reflected by the low level of parental comprehension of essential information. Further studies which will evaluate methods for improving the consent process are highly warranted.