ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF NIH-FUNDED RESEARCHERS TOWARD REPORTING INDIVIDUAL TEST RESULTS TO RESEARCH SUBJECTS

by BAKER, ERIN R

There is considerable controversy in the literature about whether to report individual test results to research subjects, but current practices and attitudes of researchers are unknown. Of the 1,453 researchers identified, 517 (35.6%) responded. Researchers who return results are more likely to be in public health or environmental health (30% vs 18%), and to conduct longitudinal research (45% vs 35%) than other researchers (p<0.01). Researchers who return test results were less worried about potential negative effects of reporting results (16% vs 23%, p<0.01) and were more likely to cite positive effects on research subjects (31% vs 20%, p<0.01) than other researchers. This survey found that 32% of researchers report individual results, and 77% of surveyed researchers think that results should be returned at least some times. These results indicate that guidelines for reporting individual test results are needed for researchers who use biomarkers.