Due to the very low quality of the current evidence , the effects of formal patient education provided in addition to the st and ard information provided by doctors to patients compared with st and ard care remain uncertain .
BACKGROUND Generally , before being operated on , patients will be given informal information by the healthcare providers involved in the care of the patients ( doctors , nurses , ward clerks , or healthcare assistants ) .
This information can also be provided formally in different formats including written information , formal lectures , or audio-visual recorded information .
OBJECTIVES To compare the benefits and harms of formal preoperative patient education for patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy .
The informed consent: a study of the efficacy of informed consents and the associated role of language barriers.
BACKGROUND Obtaining informed consent before performing invasive procedures and operations has become a st and ard practice at all medical institutions in the United States . All agree that patients should be both conscious of and in agreement with their medical care . Though patients routinely sign consent forms with numerous risks and complications detailed , there are only a limited amount of reports that study if these patients have a thorough underst and ing of those risks and complications . Confounding the issue of the efficacy of informed consents is the growing population of patients who do not speak English . To obtain objective data on the efficacy of informed consents and the role of language barriers we looked at how well patients who consented to have a laparoscopic cholecystectomy  understood the complications associated with this procedure . METHODS We conducted a r and omized prospect i ve study of all patients seen in the General Surgery Resident Outpatient Clinic who presented for an elective cholecystectomy . Fifty patients agreed to participate in our study . Participants were split into two groups . In the first group ( the control group ) surgical benefits , risks and complications were explained in the usual fashion . In the second group , after hearing the st and ard explanation of surgical risks , complications and benefits , patients watched a PowerPoint presentation with illustrations on laparoscopic cholecystectomy . Patients from both groups then took a ten question assessment based on the presentations that they encountered . Spanish speaking patients were addressed with an interpreter and given a Spanish PowerPoint presentation with a Spanish assessment . The patients ' age , education level , income , and birth country were also studied . RESULTS Fifty-two percent of the patients in the study were born outside of the United States . All of the non-US born patients were Hispanic and their primary language was Spanish . The average age of the studied patients was 38 . Sixty-eight percent of the patients reported an education level no higher than high school . The majority of the studied patients noted an  income of less than $ 40,000 . Differences were seen between patient native to the US and those born outside the United States . US born patients had an 80 % correct response rate versus non-US born patients who had only a 63 % correct response . Differences were seen between US born patient and non-US born patients concerning the topics of the severity of a common bile duct injury , gastrointestinal changes after cholecystectomy and the safety concerning conversion from laparoscopic to open cholecystectomy . No difference was appreciated in the PowerPoint group versus the non-PowerPoint group . CONCLUSION The addition of a PowerPoint presentation did not increase underst and ing of the risks and benefits associated with a laparoscopic cholecystectomy . This study did however highlight the problem of obtaining consent from foreign born patients . Patients who were not US natives showed a decreased underst and ing of the surgical procedure and the severity of the complications in both the control group and the PowerPoint group . Better methods of educating foreign patients should be investigated to truly obtain informed consents from this patient population
Due to the very low quality of the current evidence , the effects of formal patient education provided in addition to the st and ard information provided by doctors to patients compared with st and ard care remain uncertain .
BACKGROUND Generally , before being operated on , patients will be given informal information by the healthcare providers involved in the care of the patients ( doctors , nurses , ward clerks , or healthcare assistants ) .
This information can also be provided formally in different formats including written information , formal lectures , or audio-visual recorded information .
OBJECTIVES To compare the benefits and harms of formal preoperative patient education for patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy .