Monday, March 30, 2009
Informed Consent
Many questions arise from how the principle of informed consent be interpreted when the subject of a research project is newborn infants. In The Lancet a study was published when researchers interviewed 200 parents of infants who had been asked for their informed consent. The researchers questioned the parents’ competence, information given, parental understanding, and how voluntary they were in their consent. Of the 200, 59 parents’ consents were correctly given, and the other parents lacked some of the components above. Most of the impaired consents were brought on because it was an emergency situation which weakened their judgment. All of the parents were very involved in the decision making process of their infants, and the doctors normally agreed with their decision. The researchers concluded that parents should be asked for their consent.
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This is difficult. It seems like it is almost impossible to obtain informed consent from parents in an emergency situation. It sounds like the conclusion is just to ask and hope for the best. Your summary of the research is well done.
ReplyDeleteI think that parental consent does not apply if the parent is not educated or neglictant. Many parents these days are single/teenage/unplanned mothers. Even if they are informed, they might not understand what the doctors are saying and give an uneducated answer which could result in problems.
ReplyDeleteSo, who gets to decide? What is in the best interest of a child? We expect teen parents to support their children, how can we not allow them to make decisions regarding their children's welfare? How do we decide who can understand and who can't? Some teens understand more than some adults.
ReplyDeleteI think if the parents (or even just one parent) is a teenager or somehow not well enough educated then they should sign a consent form letting the doctors do whatever is best for the child. It may be a risk but only a truly clueless parent would have to do that in a severe case (when they honestly don't really get what's going on!). Then at least the educated (or at least involved, caring parents) would have a say if they wanted it and if not the doctors could make smart, ETHICAL decision on how to safe the child.
ReplyDelete---tough subject
on how to save the child**
ReplyDeleteI agree that the parents of a child should always have to have consent, parents always seem to know what's best for their baby.
ReplyDeletei agree that parents should be the people to give informed consent for their children.
ReplyDeleteMrs. LaPlace: Those are the important questions that the scientists studied. They tried to study parents to see how they would react in different situations. The study concluded by saying that the parents would most likely make the right choice for their children.
ReplyDelete