Attitudes of Mothers Regarding Willingness to Enroll Their Children in Research

Abstract

This study assessed mothers’ perspectives regarding research involvement by their children, factors that might affect perceptions of research risks, and attitudes regarding willingness to enroll children in research. Participants completed a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Mothers were less inclined to enroll children in research involving procedures posing higher risk (regression coefficient = −0.51). Mothers without mental health issues with children without health issues were more sensitive to risk than mothers without mental health issues with children with health issues (estimated difference = 0.49). Mothers with mental health issues were more willing than mothers without mental health issues to enroll children in research (regression coefficient = −0.90). Among mothers with mental health issues, having a child with a health issue was associated with increased willingness to enroll in research, compared with having children without health issues (estimated difference = 0.65).