| Summary: | 博士 === 國立成功大學 === 健康照護科學研究所 === 100 === To respect patients’ autonomy, health care professionals are obligated to protect and ensure patients’ rights by obtaining informed consent before a treatment starts. Nevertheless, informed consent is only a treatment procedure; it cannot ensure a patient’s autonomy if health care professionals fail to understand the context of the patient’s surgery decision-making. This study explored 17 elective surgery patients’ experiences during their decision-making processes. The research was conducted with a phenomenology method and Colaizzi's method was adopted for the data analysis. The participants were recruited from a teaching hospital in southern Taiwan. Two themes emerged from the data analysis, i.e., “An involuntary yet necessary alternative--a surgery” and “Alternatives constrained by the unalterable decision--the surgery”. Under such constraints, patients are forced to maintain harmony with their physicians in their interactions to ensure their safety during surgery. Therefore, it was asserted that medical professionals’ disregard to their patients’ vulnerability in their decision-making, and their lack of caring attitude toward their patients would render informed consent a mere medical routine. Hence medical professionals should empathize with their patients while they are dealing with their distress, and take the initiative to address their patients’ doubts. In a medical context, nurses can be the best advocators for such a concept and practice, and with their efforts trustful doctor-patient relationships can be facilitated to make the respecting patients' autonomy credence truly meaningful.
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