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KMID : 1234820180190020235
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Korean Society of Law and Medicine
2018 Volume.19 No. 2 p.235 ~ p.261
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A Study on the Perception Changes of Physicians toward Duty to Inform-Focusing on the Influence of the Revised Medical Law-
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Kim Ro-Sa
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Abstract
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The Medical law stipulates regulations about the physician’s duty to inform to contribute to patient’s self-determination. This law was most recently revised on December 20, 2016, and came into effect on June 21, 2017. There has been much controversy about this, and it has been questioned whether or not it will be effective for physicians to comply with the duty to inform. Therefore, this study investigated perceptions of physicians of whether they observed the duty to inform and their legal judgment about that duty, and analyzed how the revision of the medical law may have affected the legal cognition of physician's duty to inform. This study was conducted through an online questionnaire survey involving 109 physicians over 2 weeks from March 29 to April 12, 2018, and 108 of the collected data were used for analysis. The questionnaire was developed by revising and supplementing the previous research (Lee, 2004). It consisted of 41 items, including 26 items related to the experience of and legal judgment about the duty to inform, 6 items related to awareness of revised medical law, and 9 items on general characteristics. The data were analyzed using SAS 9.4 program and descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test and Binary logistic regression were performed. The results are as follows. ?Out of eight situations, the median number of situations that did not fulfill the duty to inform was 5 (IQR, 4-6). In addition, 12 respondents (11%) answered that they did not fulfill the duty to inform in all eight cases, while only one (1%) responded that he/she performed explanation obligations in all cases. ?The median number of the legal judgment score on the duty to inform was 8 out of 13 (IQR, 7-9), and the scores ranged from a minimum of 4 (4 respondents) to a maximum of 11 (3 respondents). ?More than half of the respondents (n=26, 52%) were unaware of the revision of the medical law, 27 (25%) were aware of the fact that the medical law had been revised, 20(18%) had a rough knowledge of the contents of the law, and only 5(5%) said they knew the contents of the law in detail. The level of awareness of the revised medical law was statistically significant difference according to respondents' sex (p<.49), age (p<.0001), career (p< .0001), working type (p<.024), and department (p<.049). ?There was no statistically significant relationship between the level of awareness of the revised medical law and the level of legal judgment on the duty to inform. These results suggest that efforts to improve the implementation and cognition of physician’s duty to inform are needed, and it is difficult to expect a direct positive effect from the legal regulations per se. Considering the distinct characteristics of medical institutions and hierarchical organizational culture of physicians, it is necessary to develop a credible guideline on the duty to inform within the medical system, and to strengthen the education of physicians about their duty to inform and its purpose.
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KEYWORD
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Duty to inform, Patient’s self-determination, Medical law Revision, Society’s legal system, Guideline
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FullTexts / Linksout information
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Listed journal information
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