Abstract

DE BENEDETTI ZUNINO, María Elena; PASTOR CARVAJAL, Sabrina María  and  BANDRES SANCHEZ, María Pilar. Patients´ autonomy in the decision-making process, in hospitalized patients in the Internal Medicine Service. Rev Med Hered [online]. 2006, vol.17, n.1, pp.21-27. ISSN 1018-130X.

Objective: To evaluate the exercise of patient’s autonomy in internal medicine division of Hospital Nacional Arzobispo Loayza during the September - December 2004 period. We defined as autonomy as the ability to evaluate different situations and the faculty to act without restrictions taking into account principles and belief of the own individual. Material and methods: Transversal descriptive study with a sample size of 281 patients. Information was obtained by means of a survey, whose main objectives were: identifying who is in charge of diagnostic and/or therapeutic decision making, evaluating patient’s satisfaction level with regard to handling of information related to its health and acknowledgement of its rights. Information was stored and analyzed by crossing the data with the most important qualitative and quantitative variables. Results: 281 surveys were answered, 227 by females (80.78%) and 54 by males (19.22%). We observed a tendency to identify the last year medical students as treating physician (51.2%). To greater degree of instruction 60% of patients thinks that its doctor always provides them information about its condition. 89% thought they had rights. The most common mentioned rights were information and appropriate treatment. Conclusions: Exercise of autonomy was limited in our patients. In the process of decision-making, the physician generally has a leading role. Nevertheless patients think that decisions should be taken together. Even though certain physician paternalism still persists, there is a growing tendency towards the acknowledgement of patient’s rights and the exercise of autonomy.(Rev Med Hered 2006;17:21-27).

Keywords : Autonomy; physician patient relationship; rights; decision-making; diagnosis; paternalism.

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