Attitudes and Practices on the Consent Process and Decision-making for Intravenous Stroke Thrombolysis: Physicians' Perspective

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Earlier treatment with intravenous stroke thrombolysis improves outcomes and lowers risk of bleeding complications. The decision-making and consent process is one of the rate-limiting steps in the duration between hospital arrival and treatment initiation. We aim to describe the attitudes and practices of neurologists in Singapore on the consent and decision-making processes for stroke thrombolysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A survey of neurologists and neurologists-in-training in 2 large tertiary public hospitals in Singapore was conducted. RESULTS: Among 46 respondents, 94% of them considered stroke thrombolysis an emergency treatment and 67% of them indicated there is a need for written informed consent. The majority (87%) knew that from a legal perspective, the doctor should be the decision-maker in an emergency treatment for a mentally incapacitated patient. However, 63% of respondents reported that it is the next-of-kin who usually makes the decision in actual practice. If confronted with a mentally incapacitated stroke patient, 57% of them were willing to be the proxy decision-maker and 13% of them were not. In 3 commonly encountered vignettes when a mentally incapacitated patient was being considered for stroke thrombolysis, there was no clear consensus on the respondents' practices. CONCLUSION: The next-of-kin is usually the decision-maker for stroke thrombolysis in practice for a mentally incapacitated patient despite most doctors considering thrombolysis an emergency treatment. This, together with the lack of consensus and variance in decision-making and consent practice amongst neurologists for stroke thrombolysis, demonstrates the need to develop best practice guidelines to standardise healthcare practices for greater consistency in health service delivery.