This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA

Rebecca Voelker
JAMA contributor

JAMA. 1998;279:1429.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Consent that is truly informed may not be truly voluntary, according to researchers at the South African Medical Research Council in Durban.

The researchers set out to evaluate informed consent to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing obtained at the King Edward VIII Hospital antenatal clinic in Durban. They asked a randomly selected group of 56 women to complete questionnaires before and after they attended a counseling session about HIV testing. A control group of 56 women got only postcounseling questionnaires.

The questionnaire responses showed that women in the study group were fairly knowledgeable about HIV transmission before counseling, and most agreed to HIV testing—88% of the study group and 93% of controls.

But even though they repeatedly were told testing was voluntary, 84% in the study group and 93% of the controls said they felt compelled to be tested. About one third of the study group and one . . . [Full Text of this Article]