Arkansas law requires people working in certain capacities to report things like suspected abuse, an intent to harm self or others, or a positive result on certain infectious disease tests to the authorities. Many of the people who interact with research subjects fall into this “mandated reporter” category, so this reporting requirement applies to them.
This reporting is a limit to confidentiality that subjects must be informed of during consent processes, when applicable. UAMS IRB Policy 15.1 has some suggested wording for this disclosure, although see below regarding our thoughts re the suggested wording..
Here are some hints for this language:
Mandated reporting language related to infectious diseases only needs to be included if the study is testing for a reportable disease. There’s no need to include this language if infectious disease reporting is done solely for standard care and not for the research, or will not be done at all.
We have finally figured out what has stuck in our craw about the abuse-related suggested language — the phrase “child abuse or elder abuse.” That’s a lot of words that could be shortened to “abuse” without changing the meaning. So, one of these days we’ll update the policy, but in the interim, consider amending the language to read:
By law, the study team must release certain information to the appropriate authorities if at any time during the study there is concern abuse has possibly occurred or you disclose a desire to harm yourself or others.