Designing and compiling a generic informed consent form human volunteers participating in research

Performing research on [human] volunteers may involve useful or harmful effects. To preserve the volunteers' dignity, numerous world associations have issued declarations such as Nuremberg s, Helsinki s, Belmont s report, etc. One of the four ethical principles in research is respecting volunteers' rights and the most obvious aspect of this respect materializes in obtaining the volunteers informed consent. This informed consent form has been compiled by a Delphi quality study which 15 experts have participated in its designation and compilation. At first, the experts replied the questions posed by the researchers on the frame and contents of the form. Then, the replies were summarized and once again were sent to the experts for a second revision. Eventually, the final form was edited by a Persian language expert. The final result of this research is an informed consent form which includes three main parts: introduction, body and places provided for signatures. Compilers of this form find it a suitable and useful way to obtain volunteers informed consent. This form has been prepared for all researchers in different fields of medical science and the authors welcome any comments, suggestions or criticisms by professors and specialists

effect of music therapy on chronic pain in patients with cancer

Pain is considered as one of the complications in patients with cancer. Several methods are reported to have reduced the pain and among those, music therapy, as a noninvasive method, is sometimes used in cancer treatment to help reduce pain. To evaluate the effect of music therapy on scale of chronic pain in some patients with cancer. This semi-experimental study was performed in Tehran Central Hospital. A total number of 40 patients with cancer pain and age range of 18-70 years were studied. The degree of pain was measured with a scaled ruler [0-10]. The data was analyzed using Willcoxon statistical tests. Two equal groups of patients [20 females] and [20 males] were selected. The scale of pain in stages of pre and post-implementation of music therapy showed significant differences on the basis of variables including age, sex, duration and the type of tissue involved [alpha=%5, Z=1/645]. The data found in our study was indicative of a reduction in size of pain. Hence, music therapy is recommended as a noninvasive method to reduce pain