Determining the Consenting Capacity of Minors Bearing Children

Several practical issues arise during the implementation of the informed consent process. For example, there is some ambiguity regarding the capacity of minors with children, or the parents of minors with children, to give informed consent. The purpose of this practicum project was to provide a practical guide for developing informed consent procedures for this population and briefly describe the ability of minors to give informed consent for themselves or t heir child. A practical decision tree was developed to assist investigators to comply with key elements of the informed consent process for minors, and selected clinical cases were used to describe common issues that arise.