Obtaining a patient’s informed consent to treatment is an expected component of clinical interactions. The notion that a person as an autonomous being has a right to decide whether or not to consent to medical treatment from an informed basis has its origins in both law and ethical theory. In this research I investigate the issue of informed consent from two overall perspectives. The first concerns its basis in ethical theories of autonomy and its interpretation by the law and by health professional guidelines. The second involves an empirical examination of its occurrence within the communicative interaction between a physiotherapist and their patient, and its interpretation by the physiotherapist. I use qualitative research methods involving analysis of individual audio-taped treatment encounters in private physiotherapy practice and interviews with the treating physiotherapist. A central tenet of this study is that the translation of both legal and ethical criteria into the context of the clinical encounter requires a process of negotiation and communicative interaction between the patient and health professional. This research seeks to understand this process, and the factors that influence it in the specific context of physiotherapists and the private practice clinical encounter. (For complete abstract open document)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245164 |
| Creators | Delany, Clare Maree |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Terms and Conditions: Copyright in works deposited in the University of Melbourne Eprints Repository (UMER) is retained by the copyright owner. The work may not be altered without permission from the copyright owner. Readers may only, download, print, and save electronic copies of whole works for their own personal non-commercial use. Any use that exceeds these limits requires permission from the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from these works., Open Access |
Page generated in 0.0023 seconds