Is a written informed consent always required?
Under some circumstances you may request either a waiver of written informed consent, or a short form consent procedure. A waiver would be appropriate if the consent form itself is the only identification of subjects for whom participation in the research might put them at legal or other risk as, for instance, in a study of drug dealers. Waiving written consent does not mean that the consent procedure is omitted, just that it is not documented (see Section C.27). With a short form consent procedure, you may summarize the key points of the research and conditions of participation in writing and have a witness attest by his/her signature that a full verbal explanation was given. A short form may be used when enrolling non-English speaking subjects, provided that the short form is in the patient’s own language. In this case, the translator for the full consent may also be the witness. With IRB approval, written consent may also be waived for such minimal risk research as telephone surveys
