Informed Consent in Research, Social Research, Public health and Healthcare

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I, [type your full first names and surname here] hereby take an oath that this research work is my own work and has not been submitted earlier for any research. The ideas presented in this research are mine and don't reflect the university ideas.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Informed Consent

Protecting human participants in research is extremely important, and part of that process is informed consent. Informed consent is an ongoing communication process between research participants and the investigator to ensure participants' comfort. Informed consent allows potential research participants to volunteer their participation freely, without threat or undue coaching. The potential participant is also provided with information an individual would want to know before participating, so an educated decision can be made whether or not to participate. Generally, the purpose of informed consent is to protect each participant's welfare, ensure the participants are voluntary and informed, and promote positive feelings before and after completing a study.

This entry begins with a brief history and then describes the necessary components of informed consent and some additional considerations. Next, the entry discusses the methods involved in obtaining informed consent, including special cases. The entry concludes with a discussion of situations in which exceptions to informed consent process might be made.

Pico for Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion population Adults patients accessing healthcare services, English, literature about the UK. Exclusion Children, foreign languages

Research questions

This research aims to answer the following

What are the factors impacting on informed consent and how can they be addressed?

Is health literacy and poor communication a hindrance to patients giving informed consent?

Do patients truly give informed consent?

Reliability and Validity

The term bias is a historically unfriendly pejorative frequently directed at action research. As much as possible, the absence of bias constitutes conditions in which reliability and validity can increase.

Most vulnerable to charges of bias are action research inquiries with a low saturation point (i.e., a small N), limited interrater reliability, and unclear data triangulation. Positivist studies make attempts to control external variables that may bias data; interpretivist studies contend that it is erroneous to assume that it is possible to do any research—particularly human science research— that is uncontaminated by personal and political sympathies and that bias can occur in the laboratory as well as in the classroom. While value-free inquiry may not exist in any research, the critical issue may not be one of credibility but, rather, one of recognizing divergent ways of answering questions associated with purpose and intent. Action research can meet determinants of reliability and validity if primary contextual variables remain consistent and if researchers are as disciplined as possible in gathering, analyzing, and interpreting the evidence of their study; in using triangulation strategies; and in the purposeful use of participation validation.

Ultimately, action researchers must reflect rigorously and consistently on ...