Patient consent for release of sensitive information from their medical records: An exploratory study

The disclosure of sensitive information concerning mental health, drug and alcohol use, and communicable diseases requires express patient consent und er federal and state laws. This paper presents the results of a retrospecti ve medical record abstraction of hospital consent-to-treatment and release- of-information forms, examining whether the forms are present in the record s, and, if so, whether they are signed by patients. The results suggest tha t patients who have sensitive information in their medical records or pay o ut of pocket for their care are less likely to consent to disclosure of the ir records. We discuss the implications of these results and recommend furt her research to understand patients perceptions of medical confidentiality and the processes used for securing consent to hospital treatment. Copyrigh t (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.