Impact on Parents of Receiving Individualized Feedback of Psychological Testing Conducted with Children as Part of a Research Study

Abstract

While many researchers accept the principle that participants have a right to receive information learned from their participation in research, there are few studies examining the impact of receiving results on participants. This study was developed to examine the impact on parents of the receipt of individual results of research-based psychological testing of their children. A summary of the child's individual results of standardized measures of language and development was sent by mail with the questionnaire designed to assess the impact of receiving results. Response rate from the mailed questionnaire was 55.6% (n = 74/133). Most parents reported the results as helpful and positive. The majority would receive results again. Overall, the sharing of individualized feedback from psychological testing conducted as part of a research study was well accepted by parents. This practice appears ethically permissible with appropriate support options for addressing participant concerns upon receiving the results as well options for clinical follow-up for the child.

Keywords:

• children
• ethics
• feedback
• individualized
• psychology

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by a Canada Research Chair, Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation, IWK Health Centre, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Canada Foundation for Innovation awarded to C.T.C.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions to this work of Tessa Craig and Aimee Dort. Portions of this research were presented at the Canadian Bioethics Society Conference in 2009.