Published 11 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1633
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1633

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Getting a patient’s consent for publication

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The need to ask patients for consent before publishing their details in journals and elsewhere is well established. The BMJ’s policy on this has been in place, with minor variations, for more than 10 years (http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors/editorial-policies/copy_of_patient-confidentiality)

Yet we still receive articles that don’t have patient consent. To our surprise some authors don’t seem to have thought about it at all, but occasionally authors tell us that they can’t get consent for various reasons. We then enter murky and sometimes stormy waters, navigated with the help of the BMJ’s ethics committee. Is the case is of sufficient public health or clinical importance to waive the need for consent and, if so, can it be adequately anonymised?

One such interesting case is described this week. As the authors themselves explain (doi:10.1136/bmj.a1231), they were unwilling to ask for consent to publish a report of the ethical conflicts . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Pace, N A, Owen, M., Schroter, S. (2008). What happens to papers rejected by the BMJ on ethical grounds. BMJ 337: a1880-a1880 [Full text]  

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