What do health care professionals, students, and laypeople in Greece believe about informed consent for research on medical practices? Unleashing Pandora's box.

Background: Attitudes toward informed consent for research on medical practices has been little investigated in Greece in the general population as well as in health care students and professionals, and at the same time, undergraduate and postgraduate curricula with focus on informed consent issues are entirely missing.

Methods: To explore attitudes toward informed consent for research on medical practices among students, doctors, and laypeople in Greece across several demographic variables. A total of 380 participants (180 first-year healthcare university students from various faculties including medicine, pharmacy, biology, nursing, physiotherapy, midwifery, health care engineers, 100 medical doctors of various specialties working in hospitals and private practice, and 100 laypeople) completed a survey questionnaire along with a detailed demographics questionnaire.

Results: The results revealed that between the three groups, there were statistically significant differences in the responses for all aspects of attitudes toward informed consent. Overall, Greek participants reported more negative attitudes when compared with findings from the United States. In addition, most of the participants reported lack of educational experience regarding informed consent.

Conclusion: The findings showed that the efforts and relevant initiatives by the Greek State, private institutions, and the Greek Medical Societies should refocus and emphasize on educational programs concerning the dissemination of relevant scientific information on informed consent processes, either as a provider or as a consumer. Future research should further investigate in more depth the complex influence of additional social and/or psychological factors for the reported differences.