Ngo Yamben Marie-Ange^1,2*, Nseme Etouckey Eric¹, Metogo Mbengono Junette³, Jemea Bonaventure¹, Ngongang Franck Olivier¹, Muluem Kennedy¹, Batchom Daudet³ and Ze Minkande Jacqueline¹

¹Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon
²National Centre for the Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities in Yaoundé, Cameroon
³Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Douala, Cameroon

*Corresponding Author: Ngo Yamben Marie-Ange, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon.

Received: April 04, 2022; Published: May 24, 2022

Abstract

Introduction: Consent is defined as the willingness to commit one's person or property or both. A third party means any person who has not been a party to it, or who has not been represented, and therefore a person who is not a member of two persons. A third party may intervene in decision-making when the patient cannot consent or with the patient. The consent given by the patient is qualified as "free", it must not be under physical or moral coercion either by the doctor or by a third party.

Objective: The purpose of our work was to determine the frequency of recourse to a third party by patients with orthopedic or traumatological surgical indication at the Yaoundé Emergency Center in order to assess the impact on the doctor-patient relationship.

Methodology: A cross-sectional and prospective study was conducted at the Yaoundé Emergency Center from November 2020 to June 2021; i.e. a period of 08 months. This included was any person who had had orthopaedic or trauma surgery whose consent had been given by a third party. The maintenance of the selected patients was done in the post-operative period in the hospital ward. The data was collected using a pre-designed data sheet and then analyzed using SPSS version 25.0 software.

Results: The average age of our patients was 29.3 ± 5.9 years with extremes of 16 and 44 years. The majority were married (53.3%) with at least a secondary level of education in 88.5% of cases. The proportion of patients who used a third party was 72.8%. The third parties most in demand were spouses (48.4%) and family members (35.0%). The consent given by these third parties was done simultaneously with the patients. In 14.7% of cases, third parties intervened alone to agree to the intervention.

Conclusion: Patients used third parties in three-quarters of the cases in the consent process. Also, the communication between the Doctor and his patient must be extended, to a certain extent but always under the seal of medical confidentiality, a third person whose approval is as important as that of the patient himself in our context.

Keywords: Consent; Third Party; Surgery; Emergencies; Trauma

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Citation

Citation: Ngo Yamben Marie-Ange., et al. “Place of the Third Person in the Informed Consent in Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery of Young Adults at the Yaoundé Emergency Center”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 6.6 (2022): 250-253.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Ngo Yamben Marie-Ange., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.