George, Daniel.2024-02-122024-02-122023George,Daniel.,2023.Preoperative consenting adequacy among adult elective surgery patients in Dar es Salaam regional referral hospitals: A Hospital-based cross-sectional study.HKMUhttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1323A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master Of Medicine In General Surgery Of Hubert Kairuki Memorial UniversityObjective: To assess the adequacy of preoperative consenting among adult patients who have undergone elective surgeries at three Dar es Salaam public regional referral hospitals from March to May 2023. Design & Methods: An analytical cross – sectional study was conducted at Dar es Salaam public regional referral hospitals. The target population was all patients who have undergone elective surgeries at the three hospitals namely; Amana hospital, Mwananyamala hospital and Temeke hospital. The proportional random sampling method was used to get the minimum sample size. A Chi-Square test was the main method used for analysis. Unless otherwise specified an alpha level of 5 percent was used to disprove type I error in findings. Each subject was asked for written informed consent before being enrolled in the study. Results: the study recruited and analyzed 384 adult participants at Public regional referral hospitals of Dar es Salaam. Male: female ratio = 1.1:1. Adequacy of pre – surgical consenting in the studied hospital was 15.1%. Patient’s level of education (x² = 19.627, DF = 6, p = 0.003) and Cadre of the practitioner guiding consenting process (x² = 58.000, DF = 4, p < 0.001) were statistically significantly associated with pre- surgical consenting adequacy. Most hospital informed consent forms were inappropriately documented (x² = 13.611, DF = 4, p = 0.009) Conclusion: Pre-surgical informed consent was observed to be in low frequency in this study population. Patient’s level of education and the cadre of the practitioner guiding consenting process were significant factors affecting pre – surgical informed consent among study populenInformed consentDar es Salaam, TanzaniaThesis