Intended for healthcare professionals

Papers

Methodological reasons for not gaining prior informed consent are sometimes justified

BMJ 2004; 329 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38112.692211.F7 (Published 08 July 2004) Cite this as: BMJ 2004;329:87
  1. Angus J Dawson (a.j.dawson@keele.ac.uk), director
  1. Centre for Professional Ethics, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG

    Informed consent is generally required before medical research interventions.13 Despite this, good reasons not to seek such consent often exist. Examples might include research with incompetent patients, research using anonymised tissue samples, and certain types of epidemiological research.4 Another reason, often forgotten, is where there are methodological reasons not to seek consent in advance of the intervention. Boter et al's study represents such an occasion.1 Informed consent could not be given before the research as the methodology involved the patients assessing their own quality of life. Requiring prior consent would have led to …

    View Full Text