Informed Consent and Schizophrenia

Ethical human research depends on the informed and voluntary consent of the participants. Some of the most common symptoms of schizophrenia, like hallucinations, disorganized thought and cognitive impairment, often raise concerns about whether people who live with the disease are able to give voluntary informed consent on their own. That ability is often referred to as "decisional capacity."

Over the last decade researchers at the MPRC have been committed to investigating decisional capacity in schizophrenia. Our goals are to (1) determine whether, and under what conditions people with schizophrenia are capable of giving informed consent for research participation, and (2) ensuring the safe and fair treatment of people with schizophrenia who participate, or wish to participate in clinical research.

Initial work in this area focused on the development of a tool to asses decisional making capacity, and demonstrated how education can improve decisional capacity and evaluated how subjects perception of risk effects their decision making.

Printer friendly Email this page