Participant Consent Form

Sage consent form for the publication of individual-level information

The publication of individual-level information (e.g. personal medical information/images in a case report, but applicable to any publication containing this type of information such as research reports containing individual participant details) requires the informed consent of the person – or their appropriate proxy – whose information is to be published.

There is variation in the documentation that authors use to obtain this consent – with some authors using approved institutional consent forms and others using non-standardized forms.

Consistent with COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidance, Sage has created the consent form below for authors wishing to publish individual-level information in any of Sage’s publications or platforms. However, authors can still use their institutional form to obtain informed consent for publication if it includes the appropriate elements.

Authors should not submit completed consent forms unless specifically requested to do so, owing to potential legal/privacy issues with sending and receiving confidential information. Instead, they should confirm in the relevant section of the – e.g. manuscript – text that the individual(s) or their proxy has provided written informed consent for the publication of this information in the present work.

Please note that X-rays, scans and images of parts of the body do not usually require consent for publication, so long as there are no potentially identifying marks/features and no patient identifiers in the images or accompanying text.

If you have any questions about when or how the Sage consent form should be used, please contact publication_ethics@sagepub.com.