Experiencing everyday ethics in context: frontline data collectors perspectives and practices of bioethics

Assessing the quality of informed consent in a resource-limited setting: A cross-sectional study

The process of obtaining informed consent continues to be a contentious issue in clinical and public health research carried out in resource-limited settings. We sought to evaluate this process among human research participants in randomly selected active research studies approved by the School of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University.

Consent and Community Engagement – A Bibliography in Progress

This bibliography is a work in progress and is regularly revised. We are currently updating it to link to any listed papers that are available via open access. If there are papers we're missing, or if you have other comments, please let us know by writing to info@globalhealthbioethics.org.

Tailoring Information Provision and Consent Processes to Research Contexts: The Value of Rapid Assessments

Abstract Guidance requires that consent processes for research be appropriately tailored to their cultural context. This paper discusses the use of rapid assessments to identify cultural and ethical issues arising when explaining research in studies in The Gambia and Ethiopia.

Physician-researchers’ experiences of the consent process in the socio-cultural context of a developing country

This paper draws on empirical data obtained from interviews with physician-researchers in teaching hospitals of Lahore, Pakistan. The data identify social and cultural factors that affect the consent process for participants in research.

Ensuring Consent to Research is Voluntary: How Far Do We Need to Go?

One fundamental ethical principle underpinning research ethics is that of respect for persons. It requires that researchers respect research participants’ autonomy, interests, and wishes, and act on the presumption that participants are the best judges of what their interests are (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002). This presumption obliges us to design consent processes for research that facilitate prospective participants’ free and informed decisions as to whether or not to participate in a study.

Study documents

Five seed documents are provided here for use in clinical research, which can be adapted and altered for each study. Here we provide a template concept protocol, a study protocol, a CRF, an informed consent form, and a generic SOP.

Consent and Community Engagement - A Draft Bibliography

UPDATED: August 2011. This bibliography primarily lists references for papers published on the topic of informed consent (especially as it relates to empirical studies carried out in developing countries), and the topic of community engagement (again, focusing on studies carried out in developing countries). We would like to keep this bibliography comprehensive and updated. Please let us know if we are missing any papers on these topics.

Report from Workshop on Consent and Community Engagment in Health Research: Reviewing and Developing Research and Practice, Kilifi, Kenya Monday 28th February – Thursday 3rd March, 2011

This is the Report from the "Consent to and Community Engagement in Health Research" workshop, which took place between 28 Feb - 03 Mar 2011 in Kilifi, Kenya. The workshop built upon an emerging collaboration between the Ethox Centre in Oxford, the Social and Behavioural Research Group at the Wellcome-KEMRI Unit in Kilifi, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Mahidol - Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Thailand.

Back Translation for Clinical Trial Documentation - Informed Consent Forms

It is a recommendation of some IRB/ECs that back translation is included as a necessary step for the translation of some clinical trial documentation, including informed consent documents. This article explains the reasons for back translation, and takes you through how to effectively perform this step, including explaining how to find a suitable translator for the task.

Community Engagement

Community sensitisation is a fundamental aspect of clinical trial operations anywhere in the world but is of particular relevance in the developing world. Share your experiences with other developing country researchers.