Abstract
Background: Informed consent prior to medical procedures is a legal requirement stipulated by South African legislation. Practitioners are obligated by law to inform patients of all aspects of a procedure before the procedure begins, in order to protect the patient’s autonomy. Despite the importance, it is possible that some chiropractors are not aware of the legal requirements regarding informed consent practices. A lack of informed consent, or improper informed consent, has been found to be one of the causes for disciplinary action amongst chiropractors is South Africa Aim: The aim of this study was to analyse the extent of the application of the Doctrine of Informed Consent in South African Law by chiropractors in South Africa. The results of this study will also create awareness among chiropractors with regards to ethical informed consent. The results could also identify areas in the ethical laws in which chiropractors are lacking in knowledge. Method: An online survey was distributed to all qualified chiropractors in South Africa to analyse the application of the doctrine of informed consent. An extensive literature review, in addition to the University of Johannesburg’s Statistical Consultation Services assisted in the development of the survey. The sample group consisted of qualified chiropractors in South Africa, registered with the Allied Health Professions Council of South Africa and the Chiropractic Association of South Africa. There were 145 responses to the survey. Procedure: An email containing an information letter was distributed to each potential participant via the Allied Health Professions Council of South Africa and the Chiropractic Association of South Africa’s database. The participants were informed that they could withdraw from the survey at any point if they wish to do so, and the survey would remain anonymous. If the chiropractor was interested in partaking in the study, he/she was instructed to click on the link provided in the email and they would be redirected to the Statpac-hosted website in order to complete the survey. Results: From the data received from the survey it was found that, majority of the chiropractors who participated (91.0%) requested informed consent from patients and did consider it important for ethical practice. Majority of the chiropractors (74.5%) also used written informed consent documents as per the requirements of the Allied Health Professions Council of South Africa. It was also found that the content of informed consent document could have be greatly influenced by the informed consent document provided by the Chiropractic Association of South Africa, as 71.7% of the participants either used the vii standard informed consent document or modified the informed consent document provided by the Chiropractic Association of South Africa. Conclusion: This study showed that majority of the practitioners were in fact using the informed consent legal requirement ethically and correctly. Practitioners need to be reminded about the importance of informed consent and its implications. It is likely that chiropractors who did not answer this survey may be practitioners who did not find informed consent to be important. However, it is likely that by sending this email with the survey to all the registered chiropractors it brought about awareness regarding the importance of informed consent and ethical practice. Although a minority of the participants was found to lack fundamental knowledge regarding informed consent, this could pose future problems for the individual chiropractor as well as the chiropractic profession.
M.Tech. (Chiropractic)