Informed Consent

Informed consent is the voluntary agreement of a participant to take part in research, given after they have been told what participation involves. It rests on three requirements: adequate information, capacity to understand it, and freedom from coercion or undue inducement.

The participant information sheet should state the study's purpose, what participation involves and how long it takes, foreseeable risks and benefits, how data will be stored, anonymised and eventually destroyed, who funds the research, who to contact with concerns, and an explicit statement that participation is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any point without penalty.

Consent is a process rather than a signature. Additional care is required with vulnerable groups, minors (where parental consent plus the child's assent is needed), and situations of unequal power such as a lecturer recruiting their own students. Ethics committees expect to see both the information sheet and consent form, and approval must be obtained before any data collection begins.