McGowan, CR;
Houlihan, CF;
Kingori, P;
Glynn, JR;
(2018)
The Acceptability of Online Consent in a Self-Test Serosurvey of Responders to the 2014-2016 West African Ebola Outbreak.
Public Health Ethics
, 11
(2)
pp. 201-212.
10.1093/phe/phx027.
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Abstract
Online participation in research is used increasingly to recruit geographically dispersed populations. Obtaining online consent is convenient, yet we know little about the acceptability of this practice. We carried out a serostudy among personnel returning to the UK/Ireland following deployment to West Africa during the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic. We used an online procedure for consenting returnees and designed a small descriptive study to understand: how much of the consent material they read, how informed they felt and if they preferred online to traditional face-to-face consent. Of 261 returnees, 111 (43 per cent) completed the consent survey. Participants indicated a high level of engagement with the consent materials, with 67 per cent reporting having read all and 20 per cent having read ‘most’ of the materials. All participants indicated feeling completely (78 per cent) or mostly (22 per cent) informed about the purpose, methods and intended uses of the research, as well as what participation was required and what risks were involved. Only three participants indicated a preference for face-to-face consent. Free-text comments suggested that online consent may be an acceptable modality for uncomplicated and low-risk studies. The study sample was largely composed of health professionals, suggesting acceptability of online consent within this population.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Acceptability of Online Consent in a Self-Test Serosurvey of Responders to the 2014-2016 West African Ebola Outbreak |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/phe/phx027 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phx027 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Ethics, Public, Environmental & Occupational Health, Medical Ethics, Social Sciences - Other Topics, INFORMED-CONSENT |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Infection and Immunity |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10067932 |
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