Nurses’ legal literacy related to informed consent in the Chinese cultural context:a cross-sectional study

Background Informed consent is a communication process between health care providers and patients, which culminates in the authorisation or refusal of a specific intervention. For clinical nurses to appropriately follow the requisite practices for informed consent, it is crucial for them to have sufficient ethical and legal knowledge, as well as sensitivity. The present study aimed to investigate the current status of nurses’ legal literacy toward informed consent and analyze its factors. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study using a researcher-generated questionnaire for data collection was employed. Data were collected from 6199 nurses in different clinical departments, and analysed using descriptive statistics and a non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. Results The average score of informed consent was 3.80 ± 1.45. 40.6% nurses answered all the questions correctly. Only 62.2% believed that medical staff could be exempted from legal liability, when the patient refused or insisted on staff performing a treatment, after having signed an informed consent form. Nurses’ age, work experience, and professional titles revealed a significant positive correlation with their awareness of informed consent. However, clinical departments where nurses worked, and whether they had received medico-legal knowledge during school, presented an irrelevant result. Conclusions Nurses’ awareness of the accurate implementation of informed consent was not adequate because of the disconnect between theory and practice in nursing education, moral cognitive bias of Chinese laws and ethics, and family-oriented medical and family ethics. It is necessary to carry out medical law-related continuing education considering Chinese culture, and combine theoretical knowledge with clinical practice.