Use of a Visual Aid in Improving Caregiver Understanding and Recall in Pediatric Anesthesia Consent Process - a Randomized Controlled Trial

The process of consent is unique and challenging in pediatrics as the patients themselves are not able to give their own consent. Instead the consent is given by their caregiver (parent/guardian). The elements of a good consent include - disclosure, comprehension, and voluntary choice.1 To achieve this the physician obtaining consent must clearly communicate and provide the caregivers with the description of the procedures and risks. For the consent process to be successful, it requires the caregiver to understand the information provided to them. The posters will provide the same information on the conduct of a general anesthetic and risks that the anesthesiologist will discuss with the caregivers prior to surgery. The posters will contain pictures and keywords describing the same information. The post consent questionnaire will assess the recall and satisfaction of the caregivers to the consent process.

Various studies have demonstrated the use of visual aids by way of pamphlets, brochures and posters increased patient understanding of medication adherence and the details of surgical procedures.2-5 However, there is no recent data on the use of these aids in the anesthesia consent process, especially in the pediatric population. The investigators aim to develop a visual aid describing the risks of anesthesia to supplement the pediatric consent process. The investigators hope to improve the consent process for pediatric patients and their caregivers and increase caregiver understanding and recall of the risks of general anesthesia. The investigators will include pediatric patients who are undergoing elective surgery under general anesthesia and their caregivers.

Caregivers of pediatric patients who are undergoing elective surgical procedures that require general anesthesia will be recruited to the study and randomized into one of two groups: 1) Group 1 participants will complete the anesthesia consent process as per standard protocol without the use of visual aids. This anesthesia consent process will verbally discuss and explain the type of anesthesia being used, airway management strategies, pain management, and associated risks. The caregivers will then be asked verbally or through writing to answer survey questions which includes caregiver age, sex, education level, occupation, relationship to the patient, and recall of consent process (type of anesthesia, risks involved, etc.). The survey will be administered in the recovery unit after the surgery before discharge from the recovery unit.

Group 2 participants will complete the anesthesia consent process as per standard protocol with the additional use of visual aids (poster that has been attached in Section 2.22). The visual aid will contain a brief note on general anesthesia for elective pediatric surgery and its safety. It will also contain a pictorial representation of the common events and risks involved in receiving a general anesthetic. This anesthesia consent process will verbally and pictorially discuss and explain the type of anesthesia being used, airway management strategies, pain management, and associated risks. The caregivers will then be asked verbally or through writing to answer survey questions which includes caregiver age, sex, education level, occupation, relationship to the patient, and recall of consent process (type of anesthesia, risks involved, etc.). The survey will be administered while the caregivers are in the waiting room during surgery or in the recovery unit after the surgery before discharge from the recovery unit and is expected to take less than 5 minutes to complete. Completion of this survey will end the participants' involvement in this study.

The caregivers will be consented to participate in the study after the anesthesia consent process (but before administration of the caregiver survey) to avoid the risk of recall bias. They will not be made aware of the different methods of consent being administered at the time of anesthesia consent. If the caregiver does not provide consent to participate in this study then the caregiver questionnaire will not be administered and data will not be collected for the purpose of this study. The addition of the visual aids will only enhance the consent process and have the potential for this group of caregiver participants to gain additional information about the anesthesia consent process compared to the standard consent protocol. Thus, since being randomized to the group that would receive the visual aids would not produce any detriment as compared to the standard consent protocol, the study team believes delaying obtaining informed consent to participate in this study until after the anesthesia consent process has been completed is reasonable for this study design.