Assessment of the quality of patient information sheets and informed consent forms for clinical trials at a hospital neurology service

Abstract

Background and purpose Clinical trials (CTs) aimed at vulnerable groups, such as patients with mental disorders, create ethical complexity. The patient information sheet (PIS) should provide all of the information about the CT that is relevant to the subject's decision to participate. After being informed, the subject will decide freely whether to take part in the CT and will read and sign the informed consent form (ICF). The objective was to assess the quality of PISs/ICFs from a hospital neurology service. The assessment was made using validated and reliable checklists of the information included in the PISs/ICFs of CTs with medicinal products. Methods The study comprised analyses of compliance with the checklists of 21 PISs and ICFs reviewed/approved during 2016–2017 by a medicinal research ethics committee. Results All PISs/ICFs were from multicenter CTs sponsored by pharmaceutical companies in different therapeutic areas, mainly Parkinson’s (52.4%) and Alzheimer’s (38.1%) diseases. The PISs from the neurology service demonstrated good compliance (≥80%) with the checklist, whereas ICFs should be improved. Sponsors omitted some relevant information, such as the study title or that the participant be informed of any information arising from the research that may be relevant to the subject’s health, although this information may be in the PIS. Conclusions The PISs/ICFs of CTs of medicinal products that are currently used need improvement. PISs and ICFs should be separate documents for each CT. In particular, the PISs/ICFs should consider the criteria related to the decision of participants, protect their rights and ensure that the information received is complete.

Bringing Advanced Therapies for Parkinson’s Disease to the Clinic: An Analysis of Ethical Issues

“…To be able to choose, one has to understand what the options are. Therefore, participant information should provide all relevant facts about a given trial [ 30 ] and a lot of effort should go to increase layperson-adapted understandability of participant information sheets.…”