Recall of Complications and Satisfaction of Consent in Mandibular Third Molar Surgery: A Randomised Controlled Single Blind Study

Abstract

Introduction: Informed consent prior to any medical procedure is important for legal, ethical and administrative reasons. Informed consent intends to improve the patients’ knowledge which will allow involvement of the patient in the decision making process. Identifying the most effective and well-received ways to conduct this process is an important aspiration for clinicians. This is especially true for common procedure such as the Mandibular Third Molar Surgery (MTMS). Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the recall of complications of MTMS and satisfaction between two informed consent interventions. Materials and Methods: This parallel randomised controlled study involved subjects between 18-42-year-old who underwent wisdom tooth surgery in the 10-month study period in the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. A total of 120 subjects were enrolled and assigned to the verbal (V) or combined Written-Verbal (WV) groups. The recall of complications was assessed in three phases specifically during the first consultation phase (first phase), the preoperative phase (second phase) and the postsurgery phase a week after the surgery (third phase). The score was categorised into poor, moderate and good. The association between the score of recall and interventions was assessed using the Fisher’s-exact test. Comparison of the percentage of recall between the first, second and third phases used the Friedman test while the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed to compare the percentage of recall response (median) between the first and second phases, second and third phases and first and third phases. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in the recall rate between the V compared to VW group in all three phases. A statistically significant difference was observed between the first and the second phases (Z= −2.50, p=0.01) and between the first and third phases (Z=−2.55, p=0.01) in the WV group. In the V intervention, only the first and the third phases showed a statistically significant difference (Z=−2.11, p=0.04). Overall, 97.5% of subjects were satisfied with the information received. Conclusion: The current practice of obtaining informed consent with verbal intervention is equivalent to the verbal and written intervention.

Keywords

• inferior alveolar nerve
• informed consent
• medicolegal
• patient education
• wisdom tooth