Dr Philip G. Winkelaar raises the issue of drug diversion by the father of a child being prescribed methylphenidate. He correctly advises that assessment of the child’s condition is one method of confirming proper use of the medication. A more reliable method would be to randomly test the child’s urine, with parental consent, for the presence of methylphenidate. Absence of the drug in the child...

BACKGROUND Universal HIV pediatric screening offered at postnatal points of care (PPOC) is an entry point for early infant diagnosis (EID). We assessed the parents' acceptability of this approach in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. METHODS In this cross-sectional study, trained counselors offered systematic HIV screening to all children aged 6-26 weeks attending PPOC in three community health centers ...

BACKGROUND Social mobilisation during new vaccine introductions encourages acceptance, uptake and adherence to multi-dose schedules. Effective communication is considered especially important for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which targets girls of an often-novel age group. This study synthesised experiences and lessons learnt around social mobilisation, consent, and acceptability during ...

CONTEXT Most children diagnosed as having leukemia become research subjects in randomized clinical trials (RCTs), but little is known about how randomization is explained to or understood by parents. OBJECTIVE To investigate physicians' explanation and parental understanding of randomization in childhood leukemia RCTs. DESIGN AND SETTING A multisite study of the informed consent communicati...

The authors should have obtained consent from the parents before the initial examination was done. Identifying the students with visual acuity <20/30 and then obtaining consent from the parents for a refraction test consumed time and built up the non-compliance. This was evident from the fact that 18 students (25.0%) stated that they had forgotten to get the consent form signed and five (6.9%) ...

Parental responsibility (PR) was a concept introduced by the Children Act (CA) 1989 which aimed to replace the outdated notion of parental rights and duties which regarded children as parental possessions. Section 3(1) CA 1989 defines PR as 'all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child'. In exercising PR, individual...

Informed consent should be seen as an essential part of health care practice; parental permission and childhood assent is an active process that engages patients, both adults and children, in their health care. Pediatric practice is unique in that developmental maturation allows, over time, for increasing inclusion of the child's and adolescent's opinion in medical decision-making in clinical p...