Compliance with the Informed Consent to Blood Transfusion: Constraints and Physic for the Developing Africa

Abstract

The informed consent to blood transfusion is a patient centered care where the health care provider is ethically obliged and legally compelled to disclose the details, alternatives and consequences of a procedure such as blood donation or transfusion and obtain from the patient a prior consent before it is carried out. However, this newly evolving practice is largely constrained in many developing countries of Africa and this study sought to identify constraints and advance remedies. Literature search on PubMed, PubMed Central, Google Scholar, and African Journal on Line (AJOL) as well as print material literatures where applicable was used to retrieve 66 publications whose contents met the criteria for inclusion into the study. Constraints range from nondisclosure or defective disclosure, knowledge gaps of health care providers and non-comprehension of consent-based information by patients, illiteracy, religious and cultural practices, poor funding and administrative bottlenecks like non provision of consent forms or consent-based information materials as well as weak structures of effective oversight for compliance of health institutions by governmental regulating agencies. Physic like deployment of contentious professional development (CPD) activities for different professionals, focused training on consent-related guidelines, public awareness and education on prevailing social, religious and cultural impediments, research and localization of institution specific challenges. Additionally, proactive economic policies like the deployment of insurance indemnity covers for healthcare workers with negligent liabilities in order to dissuade health care providers from practicing defensive medicine which is inimical to quality health care delivery. There is a need for more researches on constraints prevalent in each developing country in Africa for a more appreciable advancement of the practice.