Informed consent as an ethical issue in modern optometry.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Modern optometric practice contains many more mildly invasive procedures than it has traditionally. Concurrently, patients expect a more active role in decisions concerning their own health care, as, increasingly, these decisions may have harmful, as well as, salubrious, consequences. METHODS: Literature from the philosophy of ethics as it pertains to the issue of informed consent was examined and applied to optometric procedures and practices. RESULTS: A strong analogy exists between particular aspects of optometric practice and corresponding elements of medical practice with respect to well established ethical principles of informed consent. The legal doctrine of informed consent is not the only view applicable to optometry. CONCLUSION: Modern optometric practice may easily and advantageously be adapted to incorporate ethical principles of informed consent. These principles, which should be distinguished from legal principles which bear upon the same issues, may enhance the quality of health-care decisions by optometrists without creating serious obstacles to the individual optometrist's practice mode.