Tag: research participant (Page 1 of 6)

Participation in biomedical research with dynamic consent

19 September, 2023 / Roberta Biasiotto / 1 Comment

Imagine that you are asked to participate in a biomedical research project and to provide biological samples and health data to the project. Imagine also that this research project is meant to be long-term and that you will be invited, occasionally, to provide more data and samples. If you decide to participate, you will be asked to sign an informed consent, which is a sort of social contract between you and the research study. Through this document, you consent to the use of your data and samples in scientific research, and your rights as a participant are defined. In this situation, which kind of informed consent would make you feel at ease? What would be the most appropriate consent, balancing the researchers’ need to maximize the use of data and samples against the respect for your values and rights to make autonomous decisions? Would it be an acceptable option to sign the consent form and never be contacted again? Or would you expect researchers to communicate with you and keep you updated on what is happening with the data and samples you provided? If so, you might want to feel engaged and reasonably aware of what is happening in the research, but not overwhelmed by continuous communication with the project. But how much would the “right amount” of communication be? And which ways of communicating with you would you find the easiest and most appropriate?

Ethicists, philosophers, and law experts have debated the most suitable informed consent model for biobanking research. Among the different types of consent, such as specific, broad, and meta-consent, dynamic consent has been proposed as an apt solution in the context of biomedical research, especially in long-term research endeavors such as biobanking and longitudinal studies, where research participation is foreseen to be long-lasting and require repeated participant engagement over the years.

What characteristics of dynamic consent make it particularly relevant in such a context? Participants are regularly informed about the research being conducted with their data and samples and can change their choices on participation over time. Information technology plays a central role in dynamic consent: through an online interface, participants can access and review their informed consent and obtain information about the research in which they participate. In dynamic consent, communication between researchers and participants is thus an integral part of the informed consent process. Communication ensures that participants can make autonomous decisions about their participation throughout the time they are involved in the research. Dynamic consent thus acknowledges that participants’ values and life circumstances may change over the years and that their decision on research participation may differ at a later point in life, or depending on the further development of the research. Dynamic consent makes it possible to combine broad research aims with specificity of information in long-term projects, and ongoing communication is key to this.

What might dynamic consent look like in practice? An example of a study that uses dynamic consent is Cooperative Health Research in South Tyrol (CHRIS), a longitudinally designed study conducted in Italy. Our ELSI research team is led by Deborah Mascalzoni and is located at Eurac Research. In an article, we describe crucial aspects of dynamic consent as developed in the CHRIS study. We discuss the ten years of experience of dynamic consent in the study and what we have learned so far through observations and empirical evidence. I would like to point out two elements that that we found particularly important and what the participants in our studies thought about them. One concerns the possibility of changing choices over time and the other is about the communication.

First, CHRIS participants can change their choices about the level of participation and the amount of information they want. For example, they can change their choice regarding the return of research results, decide whether they wish to be re-contacted for research and communication purposes, or want their data and samples to be shared with other research institutions. Although the overall rate of change was low, CHRIS participants appreciated being able to change choices and having detailed options, because these options were important for them and made them feel comfortable.

Second, CHRIS communication uses multiple tools and media, adapting to the socio-cultural context and aiming for accessibility. For example, the study uses both traditional and online strategies, it engages the local press, and it uses both German and Italian. The introduction of a film about the study during the consent process shortened the enrollment time because the film was perceived to provide answers to the questions participants had previously asked CHRIS study assistants. CHRIS participants appreciated the multimedia strategy, which enhanced their understanding of the study, and they valued the communication from the study.

Our studies of CHRIS participants’ experience with dynamic consent thus gave us relevant insights into the issues discussed in this blog post. If you want to read more, you can find the above-mentioned article here: Ten years of dynamic consent in the CHRIS study: informed consent as a dynamic process. A general lesson from our work is that researchers can learn from the experiences of research participants to refine the informed consent process and adapt it to the needs of participants and researchers while meeting ethical and legal requirements.

Written by…

Roberta Biasiotto is a research fellow at the Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and a researcher at the Institute for Biomedicine at Eurac Research, Italy.

Mascalzoni D, Melotti R, Pattaro C, Pramstaller PP, Gögele M, De Grandi A, Biasiotto R. Ten years of dynamic consent in the CHRIS study: informed consent as a dynamic process. Eur J Hum Genet (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41431-022-01160-4

Approaching future issues

We do not know if cancer patients receive better treatment by participating in clinical trials

12 May, 2020 / Pär Segerdahl / 1 Comment

How do we know? That is the recurring question in a scientific culture. Do we have support for what we claim or is it just an opinion? Is there evidence?

The development of new cancer treatments provides many examples of the recurring question. The pharmaceutical company would like to be able to claim that the new treatment is more effective than existing alternatives and that the dosages recommended give good effect without excessive side effects. However, first we must answer the question, How do we know?

It is not enough to ask the question just once. We must repeat the question for every aspect of the treatment. Any claim on efficacy, side effects and dosages must be supported by answers to the question. How do we arrive at these answers? How do we check that it is not mere opinions? Through clinical trials conducted with cancer patients who agree to be research subjects.

A new research ethical study shows, however, that an ethically sensitive claim is often repeated in cancer research, without first asking and answering the question “How do we know?” in a satisfying way. Which claim? It is the claim that cancer patients are better off as participants in clinical trials than as regular patients who receive standard treatment. The claim is ethically sensitive because it can motivate patients to participate in trials.

In a large interview study, the authors first investigated whether the claim occurs among physicians and nurses working with clinical trials. Then, through a systematic literature review, they examined whether there is scientific evidence supporting the claim. The startling answer to the questions is: Yes, the claim is common. No, the claim lacks support.

Patients recruited for clinical trials are thus at risk of being misled by the common but unfounded opinion that research participation means better treatment. Of course, it is conceivable that patients who participate in trials will at least get indirect positive effects through increased attention: better follow-ups, more sample taking, closer contacts with physicians and nurses. However, indirect positive effects on outcomes should have been visible in the literature study. Regarding subjective effects, it is pointed out in the article that such effects will vary with the patients’ conditions and preferences. It is not always positive for a very sick patient to provide the many samples that research needs. In general, then, we cannot claim that research participation has indirect positive effects.

This is how the authors, including Tove Godskesen and Stefan Eriksson at CRB, reason in the clearly written article in BMC Cancer: Are cancer patients better off if they participate in clinical trials? A mixed methods study. Tove Godskesen was the leader of the study.

An ethically important conclusion drawn in the article is the following. If we suggest to patients who consent to participation in trials that research means better treatment, then they receive misleading information. Instead, altruistic research participation should be emphasized. By participating in studies, patients support new knowledge that can enable better cancer treatments for future patients.

The article examines a case where the question “How do we know?” has the answer, “We do not know, it is just an opinion.” Then at least we know that we do not know! How do we know? Through the studies presented in the article – read it!

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Zandra Engelbak Nielsen, Stefan Eriksson, Laurine Bente Schram Harsløf, Suzanne Petri, Gert Helgesson, Margrete Mangset and Tove E. Godskesen. Are cancer patients better off if they participate in clinical trials? A mixed methods study. BMC Cancer 20, 401 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-020-06916-z

We have a clinical perspective

This post in Swedish

Clinical cancer trials convey a culture of hope

14 January, 2020 / Pär Segerdahl / 2 Comments

Activities that we may want to keep apart often overlap. An example is cancer research and care. Clinical cancer centers often conduct research and recruit patients as research participants. Such research is important if we want to offer future patients better cancer treatments. However, does this also apply to patients participating in studies? Are they offered better care as research participants?

Together with five co-authors, Tove Godskesen recently published an interview study with clinical physicians carrying out clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The questions were about what ethical challenges the physicians perceived in the care of patients who participate in clinical trials. Does the overlap of care and research create ethical challenges? Although several physicians mentioned challenges, there were tendencies to downplay ethical difficulties and to associate the overlap between research and care with care benefit.

Tove Godskesen sees indications of a culture of hope in clinical cancer trials, where patients and physicians reinforce the image of research participation as an opportunity to access the latest therapy. However, uncertain patients can challenge the picture by asking the physician to affirm that the experimental treatment is as good as the standard treatment. You do not know that. That is why you are doing research!

The authors do not make any claims about whether a culture of hope in clinical cancer trials is good or not. However, they believe that the culture needs to become visible and discussed openly. So that the ethical challenges when care and research overlap do not disappear from sight.

The culture of hope has several aspects that you can read more about in the article. For example, the attitude that it is better to avoid giving patients bad news.

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Tove E Godskesen, Suzanne Petri, Stefan Eriksson, Arja Halkoaho, Margrete Mangset and Zandra E Nielsen. The culture of hope and ethical challenges in clinical trials: A qualitative study of oncologists and haematologists’ views. Clinical Ethics. First Published December 30, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477750919897379

We have a clinical perspective

This post in Swedish

Broad and deep consent for biobanks

18 November, 2019 / Pär Segerdahl / 1 Comment

A new article on consent for biobanks manages to surprise me. How? By pointing out what ought to be obvious! If we want to judge what kind of consent works best for biobanks, then we should look at today’s biobanks and not look back at more traditional medical research.

The risks in traditional medical research are mainly physical. Testing new substances and interventions on human subjects can harm them. Potential research participants must therefore be informed about these physical risks, which are unique to each specific project. For this reason, study-specific informed consent is essential in traditional medical research.

In biobank research, however, the risks are primarily informational. Personal data may end up in the wrong hands. The risks here are not so much linked to the specific projects that use material from the biobank. The risks are rather linked to the biobank itself, to how it is governed and controlled. If we want to give biobank participants ethical protection through informed consent, it is information about the biobank they need, not about specific projects.

In the debate on consent for biobanks, study-specific consent figured as a constant requirement for what informed consent must be. However, in the context of biobanks, that requirement risks placing an irrelevant demand on biobanks. Participants will receive the wrong protection! What to do?

Instead of looking back, as if study-specific consent were an absolute norm for medical research, the authors formulate three requirements that are relevant to today’s biobanks. First, potential participants should be informed about relevant risks and benefits. Second, they should be given an opportunity to assess whether research on the biobank material is in line with their own values. Finally, they should be given ethical protection as long as they participate, as well as opportunities to regularly reconsider their participation.

In their comparison of the various forms of consent that have figured in the debate, the authors conclude that broad consent particularly well satisfies the first criterion. Since the risks are not physical but concern the personal data that the biobank stores, information to participants about the biobank itself is more relevant than information about the specific projects that use the services of the biobank. That is what broad consent delivers.

However, the authors argue that broad consent fails to meet the latter two criteria. If potential participants are not informed about specific projects, it becomes difficult to judge whether the biobank material is used according to their values. In addition, over time (biobank material can be saved for decades) participants may even forget that they have provided samples and data to the biobank. This undermines the value of their right to withdraw consent.

Again, what to do? The authors propose a deepened form of broad consent, meant to satisfy all three requirements. First, the information provided to participants should include a clear scope of the research that is allowed to use the biobank material, so that participants can judge whether it is consistent with their own values, and so that future ethical review can assess whether specific projects fall within the scope. Secondly, participants should be regularly informed about the activities of the biobank, as well as reminded of the fact that they still participate and still have a right to withdraw consent.

Ethical reasoning is difficult to summarize. If you want to judge for yourself the authors’ conclusion that broad and deep consent is best when it comes to biobanks, I must refer you to the article.

In this post, I mainly wanted to highlight the originality of the authors’ way of discussing consent: they formulate new relevant criteria to free us from old habits of thought. The obvious is often the most surprising.

Pär Segerdahl

Rasmus Bjerregaard Mikkelsen, Mickey Gjerris, Gunhild Waldemar & Peter Sandøe. Broad consent for biobanks is best – provided it is also deep. BMC Medical Ethics volume 20, Article number: 71 (2019)

This post in Swedish

In-depth critique of dynamic consent

28 August, 2019 / Pär Segerdahl / 3 Comments

Biobanks are getting bigger and the human biological samples that are stored in the freezers have increasingly long-term utility for research. The samples can be used not only in one study, but also in several different studies. Not only in today’s research, but also in future research. This creates research ethical tensions.

Ethics requires that research participants are informed about and consent to the specific purpose of the project they are asked to participate in. However, when a large-scale biobank is being constructed, such specific information cannot be provided. Future research purposes do not exist yet and cannot be specified. Not until researchers in the future design new studies. How then can biobank research be conducted ethically?

In recent years, a technical solution has been launched: Transform research participants into users of new information and communication technologies (ICT)! Through their computers, tablets or cell phones, they can continuously be informed about new research projects. Sitting in front of their screens, they can give specific consent, or refrain from it, as new projects take shape and researchers apply for access to the biobank’s collected samples. The solution is named dynamic consent.

Dynamic consent certainly seems like an ingenious technical solution to the ethical tensions surrounding today’s increasingly long-term and large-scale biobanks. Moreover, is it not also democratic and politically progressive? Does it not give research participants greater power over the research? Is it not as if all these hundreds of thousands of donors of biological material voted on the direction of future research? Simply by deciding on the use of their own samples.

I recently read an in-depth critique of this belief in a technical solution to the ethical problem. The article is written by Alexandra Soulier at CRB, and focuses on ethical and political consequences of turning research participants into ICT users. Here are some comments that I want to highlight:

The public good that we associate with research is not the sum of isolated individuals’ private preferences in front of their computer screens. Dynamic consent is in tension with the collective and long-term nature of biobank research, and with the notion of the public good which research aims at.

If individual ICT users’ private decisions replace the joint discussions, considerations and functions of ethical committees, the governance of biobanks can be impaired. This, in turn, poses a risk to the participants themselves.

Dynamic consent might transform research participants into seducible audiences. Researchers may want to sell their projects to these audiences through clever communication strategies. Research participants are then treated as manipulable rather than as a rational public to be convinced.

Dynamic consent is not a referendum. Research participants do not vote on research policy issues. They only express their private preferences about their own research participation, project by project, without regard to any research policy implications for the long-term activities of the biobank.

Research participants who do not want to spend years in front of the screen in order to make decisions in real time about their participation in biobank research may feel forced to choose the option (through their technical device) to give exactly the open consent to future research that originally was considered problematic. How can what was considered to be the ethical problem be allowed to be included in the seemingly smart solution?

In summary, the proposed individual-centered technical solution to the ethical challenges of biobank research short-circuits the possibility of jointly taking political and ethical responsibility for these challenges.

I regret that I cannot do justice to Alexandra Soulier’s subtle discussion. I have not read such in-depth criticism in a long time. Read it!

Pär Segerdahl

Soulier, Alexandra. Reconsidering dynamic consent in biobanking: ethical and political consequences of transforming research participants into ICT users. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, June 2019: 62-70

This post in Swedish

How about personally optimized treatment?

6 May, 2019 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

It is well known that patients who are asked to participate in cancer trials are tempted by the therapeutic misconception. They believe they are offered a newer and better treatment, when in fact it is about research into an untested treatment. When researchers use genetic tests to develop personalized oncology, even more misconceptions can arise. I will soon explain. But first, what is personalized cancer treatment? Here is an example.

Patients whose tumor is to be operated may undergo preparatory radiation or chemotherapy. Since the preparatory therapy has severe side effects, one wants to avoid giving it to patients whose tumors do not respond to it. The challenge is to distinguish patients who respond to treatment from patients who do not. This is to be accomplished through, among other things, genetic tests on the tumor cells. If this works, you can develop personalized cancer treatment. Patients with the “right” tumor cell genetics receive the preparatory therapy, while patients who, according to the genetic tests, only get the side effects, with no effect on tumor growth, do not receive the therapy.

What are the misconceptions that can arise in patients who are asked to participate in research on personalized cancer treatment? Here are some examples.

Patients who are told that the researchers will do genetic tests can feel a genetic responsibility to participate, considering their children and grandchildren. They believe the test results may be relevant to close relatives, who may have the same disease genes. However, the tests are done on mutated tumor cells and therefore say nothing about inherited cancer risk. A sense of genetic responsibility can thus be triggered by the word “genetics” and create a genetic misconception of research in personalized oncology.

Other misconceptions have to do with the positive language used to describe personalized medicine. One talks about personally “optimized” treatments, about “tailored” treatments, about treatments that are adapted “to the individual.” This language use is not intended to mislead, but it is easy to see how words such as “optimization” can cause patients to believe that research participation means special treatment benefit.

The biggest challenge is perhaps to explain the research purpose behind the positive language. The aim is to be able in the future to distinguish between patients, to “stratify” them, as it less positively is called. Personally optimized care actually means that some patients do not receive certain treatments. This is, of course, reasonable if genetic tests can show that they have no benefit from the treatments but only get the side effects. However, what do cancer patients themselves say about stratified cancer treatment, where some patients are identified as non-responders and therefore are not offered the same treatment as other patients? Finally, do participants understand that “tailored treatment” is a future goal of the study and not something they are offered to try?

Communication with patients recruited for studies in personalized oncology faces many challenges, as patients are tempted by even more misconceptions than just the well-known therapeutic misconception.

Do you want to know more? Read the German study that inspired this blog post.

Pär Segerdahl

Perry, J., Wöhlke, S., Heßling, A.C., Schicktanz, S. 2017. Why take part in personalised cancer research? Patients’ genetic misconception, genetic responsibility and incomprehension of stratification—an empirical‐ethical examination. Eur J Cancer Care. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecc.12563

This post in Swedish

Pragmatic trials without informed consent?

8 April, 2019 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are considered to be the gold standard for determining a causal effect of medical interventions. To achieve this aim, possible confounding factors must be avoided. This implies excluding many patients from participating in the trial, for example, patients with concomitant conditions. A negative consequence of these exclusions, however, is limited generalizability. Studying the artificially uniform participant group, you will be able to determine a causal effect, but you will know much less about real-life treatment outcomes in the population where the intervention actually will be used.

Further artificiality is created by the written informed consent procedure, which excludes even further patients from participating in the trial. Moreover, because they know they participate in a clinical trial, participants may change their behavior.

All this points to the importance of so-called pragmatic randomized controlled trials. In such trials, the effectiveness of two approved and routinely prescribed medicines are compared in normal clinical practice. This avoids most of the artificiality of RCTs and significantly improves generalizability and practical clinical relevance. Randomization is still required for scientific purposes, however, and written informed consent is an ethical obligation.

The demand for written informed consent is an obstacle to pragmatic trials. By creating, once again, artificial selection of patients, results continue to be less generalizable, which detracts from the whole point of conducting pragmatic trials. In a recent paper in the BMJ, twelve authors, among them, Stefan Eriksson at CRB, therefore argue that “EU clinical trial regulations should be revised to allow the waiver or modification of informed consent in low risk pragmatic trials.”

Some would consider this suggestion to be controversial. We need to keep in mind, however, the extremely low risks of studies that compare standardly prescribed medicines in normal clinical practice. We need to balance that low risk against the enormous social value of generalizable findings in evidence-based medicine.

Pär Segerdahl

Dal-Ré, R. et al. Low risk pragmatic trials do not always require participants’ informed consent. BMJ 2019;364:l1092

Ask the patients about the benefits and the risks

16 January, 2019 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Almost no medications are without risks of side effects. When new drugs are approved, decision makers must balance risks and benefits. To make the balancing, they use results from clinical trials where the drugs are tested on patients to determine (among other things) efficacy and side effects.

But how do you balance risks and benefits? Is the balancing completely objective, so that all that is needed is results from clinical trials? Or can risks and benefits be valued differently?

It has been noted that decision makers can value risks and benefits differently from patients. Therefore, results merely from clinical trials do not suffice. Decision makers also need to understand how the patients themselves value the risks and the benefits associated with treatments of their disease. The patients need to be asked about their preferences.

Karin Schölin Bywall is a PhD student at CRB. She plans to carry out preference studies with patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The task is complex, since risks and benefits are multidimensional. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease with several symptoms, such as pain, stiffness, fatigue, fever, weakness, deformity, malaise, weight loss and depression. Medications can be variously effective on different symptoms, while they can have a range of side effects. Which positive effect on which symptom is sufficiently important for the patients to outweigh a certain level of one of the side effects?

Many patients naturally want the drug to enable them to work, despite the disease. However, if the pain is relieved enough to enable carrying out the work, while the medicine has as a side effect such fatigue that the patient cannot get out of bed, then the desired benefit is not provided.

To prepare her preference study, Karin Schölin Bywall decided to approach the patient group immediately. From the very beginning, she wanted to engage the patients in her research, by interviewing them about how they perceive participating in preference studies on new drugs against rheumatoid arthritis.

The patients stated that they saw it as important to be involved in regulatory decisions about new treatments of their disease. So that decision makers understand the patients’ own experiences of the benefits and risks that such drugs may have, and what the benefits and risks mean in practice, in the daily life of a rheumatic.

Results from the interviews are reported in the journal, The Patient – Patient-Centered Outcomes Research. The article emphasizes that preference studies can lead to drugs that the patient group is more motivated to take according to the physician’s instructions, which can improve clinical outcomes in the patients. The patients further stated that as participants in preference studies they want good information about how the drug functions, about how the study will be used by decision makers, and about where in the decision-making process the study will be used.

Feedback from patients is likely to become increasingly important in future decisions on medical products.

Pär Segerdahl

Schölin Bywall, K.; Veldwijk, J.; Hansson, M. G.; Kihlbom, U. “Patient Perspectives on the Value of Patient Preference Information in Regulatory Decision Making: A Qualitative Study in Swedish Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis.” The Patient – Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, 2018. DOI: 10.1007/s40271-018-0344-2

This post in Swedish

Patients find misleading information on the internet

30 October, 2018 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

In phase 1 clinical studies of substances that might possibly be used to treat cancer in the future, cancer patients are recruited as research participants. These patients almost always have advanced cancer that no longer responds to the standard treatment.

That research participation would affect the cancer is unlikely. The purpose of a phase 1 study is to determine safe dosage range and to investigate side effects and other safety issues. This will then enable proceeding to investigating the effectiveness of the substance on specific forms of cancer, but with other research participants.

Given that patients often seek online information on clinical trials, Tove Godskesen, Josepine Fernow and Stefan Eriksson wanted to investigate the quality of the information that currently is available on the internet about phase 1 clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

The results they report in the European Journal of Cancer Care are quite alarming. The most serious problem, as I understand it, is that the information conceals risks of serious side effects, and in various ways suggests possible positive treatment outcomes. This lack of accurate language is serious. We are dealing with severely ill patients who easily entertain unrealistic hopes for new treatment options.

To give a picture of the problem, I would like to give a few examples of typical phrases that Godskesen, Fernow and Eriksson found in the information on the internet, as well as their suggestions for more adequate wordings. Noticing the contrast between the linguistic usages is instructive.

One problem is that the information speaks of treatment, even though it is about research participation. Instead of writing “If you are interested in the treatment,” you could write “If you want to participate in the research.” Rather than writing “Patients will be treated with X,” you could write “Participants will be given X.”

The substance being tested is sometimes described as a medicine or therapy. Instead, you can write “You will get a substance called X.”

Another problem is that research participation is described as an advantage and opportunity for the cancer patient. Instead of writing “An advantage of study participation is that…,” one could write “The study might lead to better cancer treatments for future patients.” Rather than writing “This treatment could be an opportunity for you,” which is extremely misleading in phase 1 clinical cancer trials, one could more accurately say, “You can participate in this study.”

The authors also tested the readability of the texts they found on the internet. The Danish website skaccd.org had the best readability scores, followed by the Norwegian site helsenorge.no. The Swedish website cancercenter.se got the worst readability scores. The information was very brief and deemed to require a PhD to be understandable.

It is, of course, intelligible that it is hard to speak intelligibly about such difficult things as cancer trials. Not only do the patients recruited as study participants hope for effective treatment. The whole point of the research is effective cancer treatment. This is the ultimate perspective of the research; the horizon towards which the gaze is turned.

The fact, however, is that this horizon is far removed, far away in the future, and is about other cancer patients than those who participate in phase 1 trials. Therefore, it is important not to let this perspective characterize information to patients in whom hope would be unrealistic.

Do not talk about treatments and opportunities. Just say “You can participate in this study.”

Pär Segerdahl

Godskesen, TE, Fernow J, Eriksson S. Quality of online information about phase I clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Eur J Cancer Care. 2018;e12937. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecc.12937

This post in Swedish

Speaking to 5-year-olds about research (By Sara Frygner-Holm)

23 October, 2018 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

How should we talk to children about research? And how should we go about recruiting them to studies? For children to become research participants, their parents must consent. Regulation states children should also give assent themselves, to as great extent as possible. Our ethics committees require us to provide them with age-appropriate information. Health care providers and researchers think the system works well and is ethically “correct.”

From recruiting numerous children for various research projects, I have some thoughts on the subject. I have put together countless information letters for children of various ages; all reviewed and approved by the ethics committee. But what, exactly, is “age-appropriate information”? With support from developmental psychology and some paediatric research, the ambitious paediatric researcher can get it right. On a group level, that is. We can estimate what the average kid of a certain age group understands. But how appropriate is the “age-appropriate” information for individual children? In his poem Till eftertanke, Søren Kirkegard wrote “To help someone, I must indeed understand more than they do, but first and foremost understand what they understand.”

Today, I value a slow and calm recruiting process. I talk to the children about what research is, most 5-year-olds actually have an idea. We speak about what the project is about, and what we want them to contribute. Perhaps we draw or look at pictures. I tell them that it is absolutely fine to change your mind and leave at any time, and that no one will be angry or upset with them if they do. And then we talk some more… Lastly, and most importantly, I ask the child to tell me what we talked about, and what we agreed upon. It takes some time to understand their understanding. Give yourself that time.

Not until I understand that the child has understood do I ask them to sign the consent form.

Sara Frygner-Holm

This post in Swedish

Tag: research participant (Page 1 of 6)

Clinical cancer trials convey a culture of hope

Ask the patients about the benefits and the risks

Welcome to the Ethics Blog!

Meet the editor

Follow the Ethics Blog via e-mail

Search this site

Recent posts

Interested in the Swedish debate?

Recent Comments

Welcome to the Ethics Blog!

Meet the editor

Follow the Ethics Blog via e-mail

Search this site

Recent posts

Interested in the Swedish debate?

Keywords in this blog

Recent Comments