Digitization is becoming more and important in the medical sector. Through electronic health records growing amount of digital data patients available, big research finds an increasing use cases. The rising imposing privacy risks can be overwhelming for patients, so they have feeling being out control their data. Several previous studies on consent tried to solve this problem empower patient. H...

BACKGROUND The value of family psychoeducation for schizophrenia has been well established, and indications for its use have recently expanded to include bipolar affective disorder. However, no study to date has adequately examined its use in depression. AIMS To examine family psychoeducation in the maintenance treatment of depression and to investigate the influence of the family's expressed...

Background: Adolescent health care in family practice at times creates conflicting responsibilities for parents and their teenagers. In the context of a new adolescent preventive health program in a family practice setting, we compared attendance rates using two invitation protocols, the protocols differing in their emphasis on adolescent autonomy vs parental responsibility. Methods: One hundre...

This study assessed sedation in terminal cancer patients in terms of three characteristics: frequency; relationship to intractable symptoms; and the extent to which medical staff, family, and patients found sedation to be ethically acceptable and efficacious. Two hundred seventy-six consecutive patients, who were admitted to the palliative care unit of National Taiwan University Hospital in Tai...

The process of informed consent remains a constant challenge in clinical research. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the understanding of researchers and members of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) regarding the essential elements of an Informed Consent Form (ICF) as required by internationally recognized regulations. Using eight case studies to illustrate basic ethical elements, t...

That people should only be enrolled in medical research if they have given free and informed consent is now an unquestioned principle of research ethics. It is however a recent innovation. Prior to the prominence given to consent to participation in research in the condemnation of German doctors arraigned at Nuremberg in 1945, informed consent had appeared in American litigation, but only as an...

The aim of this article was to reflect about the Free and Informed Consent (IC) in qualitative researches in the health field. Coming from the experience of being part of a CER (Committee for Ethic in Research) in the health area the authoresses place in debate some important questions, exploring them and conducting suggestions. One of these questions and topic of analysis is the meaning of IC,...

Most differences, shortcomings and contradictions regarding voluntary informed consent for participation in clinical research relate to the South African-specific guidance documents, i.e. South African Guidelines for Good Practice in the Conduct of Clinical Trials with Human Participants in South Africa (2006) and Ethics in Health Research: Principles, Structures and Processes (2004). These doc...