Last updated: August 19, 2024

Informed consent statement

Any research article describing a study involving humans should contain a statement in the title page clearly stating that all involved persons (subjects or legally authorized representative) gave their informed consent (written or verbal, as appropriate) prior to study inclusion. In the rare situation that a study participant’s identifiable information is crucial to the case presentation, the statement of informed consent is absolutely necessary, unless the participant is deceased. In addition, a copy of any approval document(s)/letter(s) or waiver should be provided in PDF format.

Waiver of informed consent for human study subjects may be justifiable under certain rare and specific conditions, such as for a trial with demonstrated minimal risk or cases of emergency care. Authors may petition the Editorial Office for waiver of informed consent, but there is no guarantee that the petition will be granted. In general, according to the COPE, the Editorial Office favors the requirement of informed consent for all reports of information (anonymized or identifiable) and reserves the right to refuse publication of such if informed consent was not obtained.

Note: To obey the publication ethics and improve the protection of all patients' rights to privacy, the authors should provide the informed consent form on which the patient's name, address, birthday, address, ward, bed number, hospital number and other private information are obfuscated.

Sample wording: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.

Please click on the links below to download the sample documents of informed consent statement: