Can informed consent apply to information disclosure? Moral and practical implications.

This paper aims to show that the ethical justifications and the processes for requiring consent for interventional research or treatment are different to requiring consent for the disclosure of patient or subject information. I will argue that these process and theoretical differences are sufficient to view “consent” in the two situations as different concepts and suggest that the phrase “permission to disclose” would be more appropriate in the information disclosure situations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]