Informed consent in clinical neuropsychology practice: Official statement of the National Academy of Neuropsychology

Abstract

Complications arising from patient–provider interactions remains a primary source of ethical complaints or violations. One ethical issue that has a direct bearing on the patient–provider relationship is informed consent. The origin of informed consent in clinical venues has been a direct outgrowth of more than a century of legal precedents, advances in professional ethics, and progressive moral development. Informed consent allows patients to explore options and to take responsibility for their own welfare through consideration of the costs and benefits associated with the services and procedures offered to them and alternatives to those services. Informed consent is integral to patient autonomy and self-determination. Informed consent is decidedly the starting point for the patient–provider relationship and the genesis of the three key elements of ethical behavior: autonomy, nonmaleficence, and beneficence. Historically, in comparison to the provision of psychotherapy services, formal consent procedures have been used less often in the context of neuropsychological services. Early attempts to apply the 1992 Ethics Code (American Psychological Association, 1992) to neuropsychology opined that informed consent procedures were not needed for assessment procedures. Also, there were no binding legal precedents that required informed consent for psycholog-