Journal of pediatric hematology/oncology
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J. Pediatr. Hematol. Oncol. · Oct 2003
Clinical trials in pediatric cancer: parental perspectives on informed consent.
To better understand parental perceptions of the informed consent process in pediatric oncology clinical trials, 20 parents of newly diagnosed children at two pediatric cancer centers described their perceptions in a semi-structured interview. They recalled well the diagnosis, the general treatment plan, and the statistics of survival and/or cure, but the research nature of the clinical trials, particularly randomization, was not well understood. ⋯ While further study of the informed consent process should be conducted in larger, representative samples, the findings from this pilot study suggest that a goal of future informed consent interventions should be to improve parents' understanding of the research aspects of treatment. It is critical to parents' ability to provide informed consent that they feel satisfied that they know alternatives to proposed treatment and that they understand the randomization of treatments, which is the gold standard of clinical trials in pediatric oncology.