Informed consent process: challenges in clinical practice

The concept of informed consent dates back to nearly a century ago. It was instituted with the aim to safeguard a patient from unreasonable intrusion and abuse to their body integrity and to enrich patients with the ability of own choice for selecting the type of treatment as per their will. In other words, any action by a clinician, either for trial or practice purposes, involving an intrusion inside the patient’s body has to be conducted only after the approval of the patient (if conscious) or acceptance from family members, relatives, or friends of the patient (if unconscious). Application of informed consent prior to any procedure follows its implementation called ‘informed consent process’. In the present review article, the author focused on the challenge encountered by clinicians while implementing an informed consent process. Various databases were searched from inception to August 2020. Only English language articles were searched, with the following keywords: "Informed consent", "Informed consent process", and "Consent form", linked with Boolean words "AND", "OR", and "NOT". Informed consent process implementation should overcome various setbacks which have been experienced by clinicians working in government and private hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, old age homes, etc. These challenges were discussed in this review under various headings for proper identification, justifying the cause and measures to minimize their impacts.