Informed consent and IF

Question 1

What 3 things are required for consent to be valid?

Answer 1

1) Voluntary
a) The decision to consent or not must be made by the individual and not be influenced by medical staff, family or friends
2) Informed
b) The person must be given all the information about the treatment, benefits and risks and whether there are reasonable alternative treatment
3) Capacity
c) The person must be capable of giving consent, which means they understand the information given to them and can use it to make an informed decision.

Question 2

What is an incidental finding (IF)?

Answer 2

Previously undiagnosed medical or psychiatric conditions that are discovered unintentionally and during evaluation for a medical or psychiatric condition

All IFs should be discussed with the patient’s referring clinician

Question 3

What are the 3 types of IFs?

Answer 3

1. Actionable
2. Clinically relevant, but not actionable
3. Of uncertain significance

Question 4

Can you report all IFs?

Answer 4

You can disclose actionable and clinically relevant IFs unless the patients has elected not to know. Always check with the referring clinician to see what the patient has been consented for.

Never report uncertain significance findings

Question 5

Questions to ask?

Answer 5

Do they know what they could be getting back?
Do they have reasonable information?
Is there any treatment/interventions available for the disease?
Is the disease sufficiently detrimental enough to warrant diagnosing an unborn baby?
Is the finding definitely going to cause disease? (we would need to investigate this)
Patient autonomy- they can always ask not to be told about a finding.