Culture within Informed Consent: Papua New Guinea Perspective

This paper examines informed consent in medical practice. We have explored the notion of consent and determined its underlying theory and important attributes. We argue that consent is a permissive state of mind that waives the right to bodily integrity. Once communicated to the actor the permission takes effect by justifying the intervention and legitimizing the virtuous exercise of the doctor’s power. The process is usually formally documented by the reading and signing of a “consent form” by both the patient and the doctor who is proposing the treatment that takes place within a clinical setting. Many people grow up in the traditional communities where the idea of informed consent is undeveloped and tend to be passive in their roles in the informed consent process. We have gathered from this study that people tend to stick to their traditional customs and custom has become a source of their rules, brings people together, shares food, and uses for resolving issues in family, land, water rights, and compensation following disputes. In other words, peoples’ ways of life revolve around their traditional customs. Family wellbeing decisions and especially health care are usually a family matter but not an individual. Going to receive health care services at the hospital or modern health care center for medical treatment is enough to make a patient say they do not want to follow through the clinical procedure including the process of informed consent. A medical consent form is a common form used in health care facilities to obtain medical consent for a certain treatment or medical procedure or dental. We found in the interview questionnaires that many patients do not understand the use of consent forms. We examined informed consent in the context of the people’s culture and how the healthcare professionals handle the situation with patients that have widespread customs, beliefs and opinions which they strictly adhere to and practice.