Indonesian Journal of Medical Linguistics
Vol. 1 No. 3 (2026): Health literacy, consent, and institutional trust in Indonesian healthcare

Understanding without Consent? Medical Explanation, Patient Autonomy, and the Linguistic Limits of Informed Consent in Indonesia

Eka Emilia Salsabila (Universitas Jember)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Sep 2026

Abstract

Background: Informed consent in Indonesia is often treated as a legal and administrative requirement, yet patient autonomy remains ethically fragile when medical explanation is difficult to understand, insufficiently dialogic, or detached from health-literacy realities. Objective: This study examines how Indonesian consent-related discourse linguistically frames medical explanation, patient choice, refusal, clarification, relational support, and comprehension as conditions of meaningful autonomy. method: This study applies qualitative discourse analysis to 25 coded units drawn from 20 publicly accessible legal, institutional, patient-education, and scholarly documents, using a plain-language comprehension audit, patient autonomy and agency framework, and interactional access lens. Results: Consent discourse strongly recognizes explanation, approval, and patient rights, but explicit risk elaboration, alternative explanation, and refusal space appear less consistently. Results: Patient agency is more visible as rights vocabulary than as practical interactional design, especially because clarification prompts and understanding checks remain largely absent or unclear. Results: Health literacy is relevant across all coded units, while language accommodation, relational mediation, and digital or AI-supported explanation remain unevenly embedded. implication: These findings suggest that consent should be evaluated through comprehensibility, agency, and access, not merely procedural documentation. Novelty: This study offers an integrated medical-linguistic model for analyzing informed consent as a communicative threshold where legal validity, patient autonomy, and ethical understanding intersect.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

ijml

Publisher

Subject

Description

Indonesian Journal of Medical Linguistics is a double blind peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original research articles and critical studies at the intersection of linguistics, medicine, and health communication. This journal is published quarterly as a platform for the dissemination ...