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Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study
Knowledge on children’s capacities to consent to medical treatment is limited. Also, age limits for asking children’s consent vary considerably between countries. Decision-making on predictive genetic testing (PGT) is especially complicated, considering the ongoing ethical debate. In order to examin...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4643102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25911621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10897-015-9835-7 |
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author | Hein, Irma M. Troost, Pieter W. Lindeboom, Robert Christiaans, Imke Grisso, Thomas van Goudoever, Johannes B. Lindauer, Ramón J. L. |
author_facet | Hein, Irma M. Troost, Pieter W. Lindeboom, Robert Christiaans, Imke Grisso, Thomas van Goudoever, Johannes B. Lindauer, Ramón J. L. |
author_sort | Hein, Irma M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Knowledge on children’s capacities to consent to medical treatment is limited. Also, age limits for asking children’s consent vary considerably between countries. Decision-making on predictive genetic testing (PGT) is especially complicated, considering the ongoing ethical debate. In order to examine just age limits for alleged competence to consent in children, we evaluated feasibility of a standardized assessment tool, and investigated cutoff ages for children’s competence to consent to PGT. We performed a pilot study, including 17 pediatric outpatients between 6 and 18 years at risk for an autosomal dominantly inherited cardiac disease, eligible for predictive genetic testing. The reference standard for competence was established by experts trained in the relevant criteria for competent decision-making. The MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) served as index test. Data analysis included raw agreement between competence classifications, difference in mean ages between children judged competent and judged incompetent, and estimation of cutoff ages for judgments of competence. Twelve (71 %) children were considered competent by the reference standard, and 16 (94 %) by the MacCAT-T, with an overall agreement of 76 %. The expert judgments disagreed in most cases, while the MacCAT-T judgments agreed in 65 %. Mean age of children judged incompetent was 9.3 years and of children judged competent 12.1 years (p = .035). With 90 % sensitivity, children younger than 10.0 years were judged incompetent, with 90 % specificity children older than 11.8 years were judged competent. Feasibility of the MacCAT-T in children is confirmed. Initial findings on age cutoffs are indicative for children between the age of 12 and 18 to be judged competent for involvement in the informed consent process. Future research on appropriate age-limits for children’s alleged competence to consent is needed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4643102 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46431022015-11-18 Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study Hein, Irma M. Troost, Pieter W. Lindeboom, Robert Christiaans, Imke Grisso, Thomas van Goudoever, Johannes B. Lindauer, Ramón J. L. J Genet Couns Original Research Knowledge on children’s capacities to consent to medical treatment is limited. Also, age limits for asking children’s consent vary considerably between countries. Decision-making on predictive genetic testing (PGT) is especially complicated, considering the ongoing ethical debate. In order to examine just age limits for alleged competence to consent in children, we evaluated feasibility of a standardized assessment tool, and investigated cutoff ages for children’s competence to consent to PGT. We performed a pilot study, including 17 pediatric outpatients between 6 and 18 years at risk for an autosomal dominantly inherited cardiac disease, eligible for predictive genetic testing. The reference standard for competence was established by experts trained in the relevant criteria for competent decision-making. The MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) served as index test. Data analysis included raw agreement between competence classifications, difference in mean ages between children judged competent and judged incompetent, and estimation of cutoff ages for judgments of competence. Twelve (71 %) children were considered competent by the reference standard, and 16 (94 %) by the MacCAT-T, with an overall agreement of 76 %. The expert judgments disagreed in most cases, while the MacCAT-T judgments agreed in 65 %. Mean age of children judged incompetent was 9.3 years and of children judged competent 12.1 years (p = .035). With 90 % sensitivity, children younger than 10.0 years were judged incompetent, with 90 % specificity children older than 11.8 years were judged competent. Feasibility of the MacCAT-T in children is confirmed. Initial findings on age cutoffs are indicative for children between the age of 12 and 18 to be judged competent for involvement in the informed consent process. Future research on appropriate age-limits for children’s alleged competence to consent is needed. Springer US 2015-04-26 2015 /pmc/articles/PMC4643102/ /pubmed/25911621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10897-015-9835-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2015 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
spellingShingle | Original Research Hein, Irma M. Troost, Pieter W. Lindeboom, Robert Christiaans, Imke Grisso, Thomas van Goudoever, Johannes B. Lindauer, Ramón J. L. Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study |
title | Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study |
title_full | Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study |
title_fullStr | Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study |
title_short | Feasibility of an Assessment Tool for Children’s Competence to Consent to Predictive Genetic Testing: a Pilot Study |
title_sort | feasibility of an assessment tool for children’s competence to consent to predictive genetic testing: a pilot study |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4643102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25911621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10897-015-9835-7 |
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