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The article explores the challenges of ensuring voluntary and informed consent which is obtained from potential research subjects in the north-eastern part of Romania. This study is one of the first empirical papers of this nature in Romania. The study used a quantitative survey design using the adapted Quality of Informed Consent (QuIC) questionnaire. The target population consisted of 100 adult persons who voluntarily enrolled in clinical trials. The informed consent form must contain details regarding the potential risks and benefits, the aim of the clinical trial, study design, confidentiality, insurance and contact details in case of additional questions. Our study confirmed that although all required information was included in the ICF, few clinical trial participants truly understood it. We also found that the most important predictive factor for a good subjective and objective understanding of the clinical trial was the level of education. Our study suggests that researchers should consider putting more effort in order to help clinical trials participants achieve a better understanding of the informed consent. In this way they will ensure that participants' decision-making is meaningful and that their interests are protected.

The autopsy is one of the main tools for the evolution of medicine. Nevertheless, the autopsy rate declined worldwide in the last decades due to several reasons: progress in diagnosis of diseases, fear of legal consequences if a wrong diagnosis is proved, refusal of the deceased's family, reluctance of forensic pathologists and pathologists because of infectious risk and time consumption. However, despite the huge progress of medical science, discrepancies between the death diagnosis established by the clinician and the diagnosis established by the pathologist after performing the autopsy still exist and have remained relatively constant over the last 50 years. Our study aimed to identify the concordance rate between the cause of death established in the hospital and the cause of death established after performing the forensic autopsy and to determine the factors that could influence the concordance rate. The study group included 100 patients who died in hospital and underwent autopsy. We found a concordance rate of 45% which could be influenced by certain factors, such as: duration of hospitalization, interclinic consultation, mechanism of death, postmortem microscopic examination and the biochemical analysis performed during hospitalization. Our results support the fact that autopsy remains an essential tool for assessing the quality of care, for improving medical education process and for highlighting those diseases that represent "diagnostic challenges".

(1) Background: In the older population, depression often affects people with chronic medical illnesses, cognitive impairment, or disability. Frailty is another important issue affecting older adults, being difficult to clinically distinguish from frailty in advanced old age. Well-designed interventional studies and clinical strategies targeting both frailty and depression are rare or nonexistent. (2) Methods: We realized a retrospective study in which we included a total of 411 patients that were admitted to the Geriatric Clinic from “Dr. C. I. Parhon” Hospital from Iasi for a period of 13 months. The aim of our study was to investigate the relationship between depression and frailty in a geriatric population due to the fact that the quality of life is negatively influenced by both frailty and depression. (3) Results: The prevalence of the depressive symptoms screened by the GDS-15 was 66.7%, with women being more depressed than men. Furthermore, an obvious relationship between depression and the dependence degree in performing daily activities has been observed. In addition, the mean MMSE score decreased with an increasing degree of depression. (4) Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the association between frailty and depression, one of them being a risk factor in the development of the other. A poor acknowledgment of the problem and an underdiagnosis of these conditions are important public health concerns due to the high healthcare costs. Thus, an active primary prevention would be imperiously needed in order to diagnose frailty and depression at an early stage, increasing the quality of life of the elderly and also their successful aging.

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