Child Clinical Trial Consent
When your child has cancer, you would do anything to cure their disease. Often, parents will choose to enroll their children in a clinical trial. When this happens, the parent may need to consider the amount of trial information that whould be shared with their child. Although, many treatment facilities use a standardized ‘assent’ document that discloses trial information to your child, prior to acceptance in the trial.
Some questions that need to be discussed:
- How much does your child need to know in order to participate in a clinical trial?
- Will your child assent to the trial if you wish them to?
- Or will they make the decision based on their own desires?
- Does your own fear of the clinical trial process keep you from discussing a potential clinical trial to your child?
- Will your own opinions and emotions keep you from making sound decisions based on your child’s specific needs?
- Do you believe that medical and psychosocial professionals should be involved in helping you to explain a specific clinical trial to your child?
- How much knowledge is ‘too much’ for your child?
We hope that you will join us in this blog to give us your opinions and thoughts on this very important issue.