Comparing information for consent for orthopaedic procedures given by a video, or by a doctor, to see if this improves patient understanding of a procedure.

Informed medical consent is often poorly done; it can be time consuming, there is no clear standard between different medical practitioners, and overwhelmingly, the literature provides support for standardised animations or video consent. Video animations have been shown to improve patient comprehension, take the same amount of time, or can even save time and in most cases there is an improvement in patient satisfaction and comprehension. Videos have been successfully used to consent for colonoscopy, knee arthroscopy, laparoscopic urological procedures, cataract surgery, intravenous fluorescent angiography, vascular procedures, coronary angiography, cardiac electrophysiology, urogynaecological surgery as well as for clinical trials. There are no studies evaluating video informed consent for orthopaedic procedures in Australia. Given the literature shows improvements in patient understanding and satisfaction, it is anticipated that the video informed consent will lead to enhanced clinical practice, including enhanced knowledge retention by patients, improved patient and physician satisfaction, improved recall of the procedure, as well as saving minutes per consultation. We aim to compare traditional doctor-patient informed consent to a video animation when consenting for orthopaedic procedures (e.g. total hip replacement, total knee replacement, shoulder reconstruction, joint arthroscopy, hallux valgus deformity and other procedures). We propose that the video consent will be superior to traditional doctor patient consent – patients will have better retention of information, comprehension and understanding and higher satisfaction.