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Adolescents Lack Sufficient Maturity to Consent to Medical Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Mark J. Cherry
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Abstract

This study explores the ways in which adolescents, even so-called “mature minors”, lack adequate development of the intellectual, affective, and emotional capacities necessary morally to consent to medical research on their own behalf. The psychological and neurophysiological data regarding brain maturation supports the conclusion that adolescents are qualitatively different types of agents than mature adults. They lack full adult maturity and personal agency. As a result, in addition to the usual requirements for IRB approval, one or both parents, or a legal guardian, should provide informed consent for minor children to participate in medical research.

Type
Symposium Articles
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 45 , Issue 3: Symposium - Controversies in Clinical Research Ethics , Fall 2017 , pp. 307 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2017

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References

“The notion of diminished autonomy of children and adolescents is based on limitations in cognition and judgment. During early and middle adolescence, most teens attain adult cognitive capacity, albeit at varying rates and ages. … This limited but emerging capacity is recognized both in state laws that allow adolescents who are still legally minors to give their own consent for medical care and in the federal regulations governing research.” Society for Adolescent Medicine, “Guidelines for Adolescent Health Research: A Position Paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine,” Journal of Adolescent Health 33, no. 5 (2003): 396-409, at 398. Here, the Society for Adolescent Medicine committee failed to distinguish between different types of capacities: the intellectual capacity to understand information versus the executive capacity to make a well informed and thought through mature decision.Google Scholar
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