Informed Consent and Capacity (RN Nursing)

Informed consent (IC) is a medicolegal term describing the documented conversation between a patient and their physician wherein the physician discloses all relevant and necessary information to a patient who is competent to make an informed and voluntary decision regarding their care. Competency, disclosure, and voluntariness are the key elements upon which IC is based. The patient's well-being and autonomy are the 2 key fundamental moral values that are preserved by IC. Medical care decisions requiring IC range from the choice to undergo a defined medical or surgical treatment to participation in a research study. The IC represents shared decision-making between the patient and their caregiver and is thus mandatory for both clinical care and enrollment in research studies. Informed consent is usually documented in a signed written form.

Decision-making capacity and legal competence are terms often used interchangeably in a hospital setting to describe an individual's ability to make consequential decisions regarding themselves, as a manifestation of their autonomy. More specifically, however, capacity describes a patient’s ability to make autonomous decisions regarding their care, as determined by a physician, whereas competence is a legal term that describes a person’s ability to participate in legal processes, as determined by a judge.