Informed consent in research requires investigators to explain to potential participants the procedures, risks, benefits, and alternatives of a study through either oral or written consent. This article discusses cases when oral consent may be more appropriate to use than written consent. A proposal is presented for writing Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols that incorporate both types of consent to protect the interests of participants and investigators.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Blackhall, L. J., G. Frank, S. T. Murphy, V. Michel, J. M. Palmer, and S. P. Azen. 1999. Ethnicity and attitudes towards life-sustaining technology. Social Science and Medicine48:1779–1789.
2.
Caralis, P. V., B. Davis, K. Wright, and E. Marcial. 1993. The influence of ethnicity and race on attitudes toward advance directives, life-prolonging treatments, and euthanasia. Journal of Clinical Ethics4 (2): 155–164.
3.
Congressional Information Service. 1999. How much progress has the nation made? Chap. 2 in The National Education Goals Report: Building a nation of learners, 1996. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
4.
Dula, A.1994. African American suspicion of the healthcare system is justified: What do we do about it?Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics3 (3): 347–357.
5.
Eleazer, G. P., C. A. Hornung, C. B. Egbert, J. R. Egbert, C. Eng, J. Hedgepeth, R. McCann, H. Strothers, M. Sapir, M. Wei, and M. Wilson. 1996. The relationship between ethnicity and advance directives in a frail older population. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society44 (8): 938–943.
6.
Foster, M.1992. Sociolinguistics and the African-American community: Implications for literacy. Theory Into Practice31 (4): 303–311.
7.
Garrett, J. M., R. P. Harris, J. K. Norburn, D. L. Patrick, and M. Danis. 1993. Life-sustaining treatments during terminal illness: Who wants what?Journal of General Internal Medicine8:361–368.
8.
Harris, V. J.1992. African-American conceptions of literacy: A historical perspective. Theory Into Practice31 (4): 276–286.
9.
Heitman, E.1994. Cultural diversity and the clinical encounter: Intercultural dialogue in multi-ethnic patient care. In Theological analyses of the clinical encounter, edited by G. P. McKenny and R. J. Sande, 203–223. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
10.
Jones, J.1981. Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment. New York: Free Press.
11.
National Center for Educational Statistics.1992. National adult literacy survey. Working Paper No. 1999–09. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
