Parental consent in adolescent substance abuse treatment outcome studies

No systematic review has focused on parental consenting procedures used in adolescent substance abuse treatment outcomes research. To address this gap, we examined parental consenting procedures in adolescent outcome studies (n = 34) published between 1980 and 2007. Although parental consent was required in 89% of adolescent treatment outcome studies we reviewed, consenting procedures were not routinely reported. We argue that parental consenting procedures should be routinely reported as a methodological feature of adolescent treatment outcome studies and, given concerns about sample bias in adolescent risk behavior research when parental consent is required, encourage outcomes researchers in this area to prospectively study the impact of consenting procedures on both the study participation rates and substance use reporting.