Search

The aim of this study is to assess patients' recall of their previous research participation. Recall was established during interviews and compared with entries from clinical notes. Participants were 49 patients who had previously participated in different types of research. Of the 49 patients, 45 (92%) interviewees recalled 69 of 109 (63%) study participations. Level of recall varied according to the type of research, some participants clearly recalled the details of research aims, giving consent and research procedures. Others recalled procedures (e.g. DNA testing) but were unclear about their purpose. There was no significant effect of time on recall. Some types of research participation (e.g. DNA testing) may be recalled as clinical care. We argue that such misunderstandings may have the potential to undermine participants' ongoing consent, particularly in ongoing/longitudinal studies. Valid consent may be best achieved by re-assessing the scope of consent and relating it to the nature of the interventions themselves rather than the reasons for undertaking them.

The objective of this study is to describe researchers', health-care providers' and other stakeholders' views of ethical review and research governance procedures. The study design involved qualitative semi-structured interviews. Participants included 60 individuals who either undertook research in the subspecialty of cancer genetics ( n = 40) or were involved in biomedical research in other capacities ( n = 20), e.g. research governance and oversight, patient support groups or research funding. While all interviewees observed that oversight is necessary to protect research participants, ethical review and research governance (ERG) arrangements were described negatively throughout these interviews. Interviewees identified a number of problems with ERG, including: over-bureaucratization, over-standardization of information requirements for different types of research, a lack of standardization in the types of information required by different committees for the same research and a lack of consistency in different committees' responses. A number of solutions were proposed including streamlining application procedures and harmonizing committees' responses and information requirements. Recent reports suggest that ethical review procedures and research governance arrangements threaten the possibility of undertaking clinical research in the UK, hence the introduction of the Integrated Research Application System (IRAS) is long overdue. However, while IRAS may solve some of the problems identified by interviewees, it remains to be seen to what extent it will impact upon the very negative perceptions of ethics and research governance procedures reported here.

This paper attempts to open debate about the nature of and need for ethical review of health-related social science research. Drawing upon personal experience and anecdotal reports we describe some of the problems social scientists and ethics committee members may encounter when social science research is reviewed by Multicentre and Local Research Ethics Committees. We argue that the boundary between research methods and ethics is ambiguous and flexible, and that ethics therefore permeates research at all levels from the construction of the research question to the ways in which data are collected and disseminated. We suggest that the dissatisfaction both sides may experience may be mitigated by more communication and a willingness to understand the others' definition of what counts as ethics and how research is organized and executed. We conclude that ethical review has great potential to strengthen research, and that we must work hard to avoid a situation in which ethical review is seen as just a bureaucratic exercise.