| Summary: | Professionals whose job it is to counsel patients must be cognizant of the role played by communication in the establishment of a trusting working relationship. This is no less true for those within the medical community who must obtain informed consent for surgical interventions than it is for those working within the area of mental health. In order to determine what role communication plays in the obtaining of informed consent within a pediatrics setting, a qualitative study was conducted of 20 surrogates (those individuals giving consent on behalf of legally incompetent children) and of 5 surgeons performing surgical interventions on those children. Two sets of questionnaires were administered in order to elicit information pertaining to how surgeons communicate information to surrogates and to investigate how that information is received and processed by the surrogate. Results showed that while the obtaining of signed informed consent itself may not be a major problem, there are some difficulties in the communication between surgeons and surrogates in this domain. Based on the findings, recommendations for improved communication between surgeons and surrogates are proposed.
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