Informed consent: a study of experiences and opinion of utilizers of health services from India.

One hundred and forty-eight subjects drawn from urban and rural settings who had been hospitalized for any medical problem within the previous three years were interviewed using a semi structured interview schedule to understand their opinion and experiences of informed consent. Sixty medical officers providing primary care in both urban and rural areas were concurrently interviewed to gather their opinion. Results revealed that respondents were dissatisfied with the information they had received about the different aspects of their illness. Both the doctors and the patients felt the need for providing adequate information to utilizers of health services. The two groups identified certain constraints, like illiteracy, in obtaining informed consent. Doctors compared to patients more often thought that illiterates could not understand the information. Patients more often felt that information about nature of investigations and about prognosis need not be routinely revealed.