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A Structurational Analysis of Informed Consent to Treatment: (Re)productions of Contradictory Sociohistorical Structures in Practitioners' Interpretive SchemesBoston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA Informed consent (IC) to treatment honors patient autonomy and bodily integrity. Yet, it is a leading reason for patient litigation, it has not been examined from discursive or theoretical perspectives, and its sociohistorical context is ignored. In a previous analysis of American IC law and the IC literature, structuration theory guided a reconceptualization of IC as unfolding amid contradictory sociohistorical structures or discursive formations—traditionalism, liability, and decision making—representing interests favoring a group's (physicians, states and administrative entities, and patients, respectively) control of IC. This study's focus groups with radiologists found them (re)producing these structures in their interpretive schemes of patients' reactions to IC, IC as protective paperwork, and IC as a patient- and relationship-centered process.
Key Words: communication decision making health care informed consent interviews semistructured patient participation relationships
This version was published on June
1, 2009 Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 19, No. 6,
802-814 (2009) |
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