Institute for Culture and Society, Department of Biomedical Humanities, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
BMC Med Ethics. 2013 Jan 3;14:2. doi: 10.1186/1472-6939-14-2.
Waiving parent permission can be an option in some epidemiological and social research with adolescents. However, exemptions have not been uniformly considered or applied. Our aim is to critically assess the different factors that could be taken into account when making decisions about waiving active parental permission in observational research with adolescents.
In some cases alternatives to parental permission could be applied to protect the rights of both adolescents and parents and also to assure the benefits to adolescents as a group that can come from appropriately conducted studies. However, the criteria of ensuring minimal risk can be difficult to define and apply and a distinction between harm and discomfort is reviewed. Waiving active parental permission could be acceptable when the risk of harm is minimal; when the research questions are related to an activity for which adolescents are not legally considered to be children; when the risk of harm or discomfort may increase if parental permission is required; and when risk of discomfort is low because the questionnaire is not potentially offensive for some adolescents and/or for some parents.
Stringent rules concerning parental permission in some studies could be detrimental to adolescents. A framework and a decision tree guide are proposed to help researchers and Research Ethics Committees in their decisions on whether active parental permission must be obtained.
在一些针对青少年的流行病学和社会研究中，豁免家长同意可能是一种选择。然而，豁免并没有得到统一的考虑或应用。我们的目的是批判性地评估在对青少年进行观察性研究时，决定豁免主动家长同意时可以考虑的不同因素。
在某些情况下，可以应用替代家长同意的方法来保护青少年和家长的权利，并确保作为一个群体的青少年从适当进行的研究中受益。然而，确保最小风险的标准可能难以定义和应用，并且审查了伤害和不适之间的区别。当伤害风险最小化时，可以接受豁免主动家长同意；当研究问题与青少年在法律上不被视为儿童的活动有关时；当需要家长同意时，伤害或不适的风险可能会增加时；并且当不适风险较低时，因为问卷对一些青少年和/或一些家长来说没有潜在的冒犯性。
在某些研究中，关于家长同意的严格规定可能对青少年不利。提出了一个框架和决策树指南，以帮助研究人员和研究伦理委员会在决定是否必须获得主动家长同意时做出决策。
