Characteristics of adolescents who provide neither parental consent nor refusal for participation in school-based survey research.
Schools offer a convenient setting for research on adolescents. However, obtaining active written parental consent is difficult. In a 6th-grade smoking study, students were recruited with two consent procedures: active consent (parents must provide written consent for their children to participate) and implied consent (children may participate unless their parents provide written refusal). Of 4,427 invited students, 3,358 (76%) provided active parental consent, 420 (9%) provided active parental refusal, and 649 (15%) provided implied consent (parental nonresponse). The implied consent procedure recruited more boys, African Americans, students with poor grades, and smokers. This dual-consent procedure is useful for collecting some limited data from students who do not provide active consent or refusal.
Unger
Jennifer B
JB
University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, USA. unger@usc.edu
Gallaher
Peggy
P
Palmer
Paula H
PH
Baezconde-Garbanati
Lourdes
L
Trinidad
Dennis R
DR
Cen
Steven
S
Johnson
C Anderson
CA
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001213:Asian / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002648:Child; D003479:Curriculum; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D033282:Parental Consent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018579:Patient Selection; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012574:Schools; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data