The incidence of reporting consent rates in nursing research articles.

The study described the incidence of reporting consent rates (CRs) in nursing research articles, ascertained the mean CR for nursing research articles, ascertained differences between those studies that reported a CR and those that did not report a CR, and compared studies that used clinical populations to studies that used nonclinical populations. Research articles (371) from three nursing research journals were examined. Results showed that: (a) 40.7 percent of articles reported a CR, (b) the mean CR was 71.8 percent, (c) 41.1 percent reported inadequate CRs, (d) studies reporting a CR differed from those that did not on five of nine variables, and (e) studies employing clinical populations reported higher consent rates than did studies that employed nonclinical populations.