Physician satisfaction with informed consent process in psychiatric research

Informed consent process is crucial in any research. The consent is meaningful only when the subject is capable of using disclosed information in deciding whether to participate in a research study. Decision-making capacity might change in psychiatric patients during the informed consent process. Therefore, there may be some elements which are neglected during the informed consent process in psychiatric research. The purpose of this research study was to determine the perceptions of physicians about what elements of informed consent might be neglected in psychiatric research and what additional elements might be included that would improve the informed consent process for psychiatric trials. There were limitations in this study; response rate was very low. Other researchers have also found very low response rates in physician surveys. Further studies should be done with a larger population having wide range of healthcare professionals who have had experience in psychiatric clinical trials