When collecting patient data by questionnaires, it is important to reassure patients of confidentiality and to be aware of techniques which can be implemented to ensure that the identity of the patients is not disclosed to a third party.  This is all part of the process of informed consent.  Please refer to the resource Consent for data sharing for further advice on these matters, while bearing in mind that you should be liaising with your recommended institutional ethics review contacts regarding any need for ethical approval for your own study.

 

 

Confidentiality and consent by Margaret MacDougall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.