266 Improving Consent with Pre-Filled Consent Forms in Emergency General Surgery: A Quality Improvement Study

Published Date: 19th June 2025

Publication Authors: Zizzo. C, Henriques. M, Wooding. J, Kennedy-Dalby. A, Rajaganeshan. R

Aim
Informed consent is a critical component of surgical practice, ensuring that patients understand the risks and benefits of procedures. However, handwritten consent forms are often incomplete, illegible, and inconsistent. This quality improvement project aimed to review the informed consent process for laparoscopic cholecystectomy and appendicectomy at a District General Hospital in the United Kingdom and subsequently introduced pre-filled, procedure-specific consent forms.

Method
A retrospective review of 20 handwritten consent forms compared the documented risks to a standardised set of risks developed from multiple resources. This demonstrated suboptimal documentation on the handwritten consent forms. In response, two pre-filled consent forms were developed, incorporating a standardised set of risks, layman’s explanations and provided space for additional risks to be added depending on the patient’s needs. These new forms aimed to enhance patient-surgeon communication and facilitate patient understanding and improve documentation. A second retrospective analysis of 74 consent forms post-intervention was then performed.

Results
Pre-intervention only 68.57% of risks mentioned for appendicectomy and 58.89% for cholecystectomy. The most commonly documented risks were bleeding, bruising, and infection, while less frequent risks such as infertility were often omitted. Post-intervention demonstrated an improvement in documentation of risks, with the mean percentage increasing to 81.82% and 79.69% for appendicectomy and cholecystectomy respectively.

Conclusions
The consent forms created facilitate patient surgeon discussions, by being customisable they allow for thorough documentation. This project demonstrates that pre-filled consent forms improve documentation of risks, increase legibility, as such act as a valuable aid in the consenting process reducing chances of human error and omission.

 

Zizzo, C; Henriques, M; Wooding, J; Kennedy-Dalby, A; Rajaganeshan, R. (2025). 266 Improving Consent with Pre-Filled Consent Forms in Emergency General Surgery: A Quality Improvement Study. BJS. 112(Suppl 10), p.znaf128.541. [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znaf128.541 [Accessed 1 August 2025].

 

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