**14. Informed consent taking in medical research**

In medical research involving human subjects, taking consent from the subjects is very necessary. In fact, it is not just about consent taking; rather, it is about taking a consent that is informed. Informed consent refers to the voluntary agreement of a human subject regarding his/her participation in a medical research as a subject. Informed consent taking constitutes a major aspect in the ethical conduct of medical research. As non-coercion is one of the standing pillars in the principles governing medical ethics, all persons participating in a medical research must not be coerced to participate in any way; rather, their participation should be completely voluntary. In the course of recruiting humans into a medical research, they should

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**Author details**

Dabota Yvonne Buowari1

Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

provided the original work is properly cited.

2 Cephas Health Research Initiative Inc, Ibadan, Nigeria

help in there resolution of ethical dilemmas and conflict.

\*Address all correspondence to: dabotabuowari@yahoo.com

\* and Kehinde Kazeem Kanmodi<sup>2</sup>

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

be given prior information that is of relevance to the protocol and safety profile of the study. However, informed consent taking applies only to adults, i.e. people aged 18 years or above. It is believed that only people in this category are mentally and psychologically capable to make decisions regarding consent. As for children, due to

Medical ethics is a branch of ethics is a branch of philosophy that guides all human endeavors. Medical ethics are sets of regulations that guide physicians in their work and protect them against litigation. Ethical principles that guide the medical profession are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, confidentiality and truth telling. Sometimes these ethical principles have to be breached to protect the public and when required by a court of law. These ethical principles also

their age and level of psychological development, they can only give assent. Informed consent can be taken in two ways: written or verbal. In written informed consent, the human subject gives a written documentation of him/her agreeing to participate in a study while in verbal informed consent, the human subject gave his/her agreement verbally. Between the two forms of informed consent,

1 Department of Accident and Emergency Services, University of Port Harcourt

*Medical Ethics*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95382*

the written type is more reliable.

**15. Conclusion**

#### *Medical Ethics DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95382*

be given prior information that is of relevance to the protocol and safety profile of the study. However, informed consent taking applies only to adults, i.e. people aged 18 years or above. It is believed that only people in this category are mentally and psychologically capable to make decisions regarding consent. As for children, due to their age and level of psychological development, they can only give assent.

Informed consent can be taken in two ways: written or verbal. In written informed consent, the human subject gives a written documentation of him/her agreeing to participate in a study while in verbal informed consent, the human subject gave his/her agreement verbally. Between the two forms of informed consent, the written type is more reliable.
