Research report: do general practitioners tell their patients about side effects to common treatments?

The principle of respect for patients’ autonomy, or right to self-determination, has gained increasing importance in health care legislation during the last decade. To respect this principle the patients’ informed consent to a proposed treatment is required. In relation to ordinary treatments in general practice, where several reasonable alternatives may be available and where non-treatment may be an acceptable alternative, this requirement is at least as strong as in other parts of the health care system. In this context, information about side effects may be crucial for the patient's decision to accept a proposed treatment or not. The aims of this study were to investigate the extent to which general practitioners in Denmark inform their patients about possible side effects without being asked when a common treatment is proposed. We also wished to examine the relation between physicians’ estimation of the severity and frequency of these side effects, and their willingness to inform patients spontaneously as well as their preferred reasons for choosing to inform or not inform the patients. A questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 450 Danish general practitioners. The respondents differed considerably with regard to their willingness to inform patients about side effects but they were significantly more likely to give the information spontaneously if they considered the side effects frequent than when side effects were considered rare. In contrast, estimations of severity did not seem to be of any importance. The majority of the respondents informed their patients primarily to enable them to react appropriately to the side effects in question or to make sure that the patient would comply with the treatment. These findings indicate that the information given to patients about side effects by Danish general practitioners is not in accordance with the principle of respect for the patients’ autonomy and not in accordance with the requirements of Danish legislation.