Volunteers for Biomedical Research

Volumetric Measure of the Frontal and Temporal Lobe Regions in Schizophrenia

“…Normal control candidates, responding to a posted hospital announcement, received an initial telephone screening 29 and then an evaluation interview, which included the Structured Clinical Inverview for DSM-III-R Non-Patient Edition. 30 Normal controls were excluded from the study if they had a first-degree familial history of psychiatric illness, an educational level higher than 16 years, or any current or past DSM-III-R psychiatric or substance abuse diagnoses (excluding caffeine dependence, nicotine dependence, and prior isolated episodes of depression).…”

Safety, Science, or Both? Deceptive Healthy Volunteers: Psychiatric Conditions Uncovered by Objective Methods of Screening

“…They provide scientists with valuable information for comparison with patients who have mental disorders, or serve as participants in studies of healthy brain anatomy and physiology such as attention, perception and memory. Previous reports document a high prevalence of psychopathology among HVs (16%–44%) and highlight the importance of mental health screening of HVs (1–4). …”

“…Compared to patients, HVs are frequently less rigorously screened, which may affect research outcome (1, 16). A multicenter comparison analysis found larger variability in cerebrospinal fluid biogenic amines among controls than among patients, possibly due to inadequate screening of HVs (16).…”

“…Shtasel and colleagues excluded 46% of HVs due to psychiatric or medical conditions but did not describe medical exclusions (1). Researchers who are developing an MRI atlas of a healthy human brain excluded 48% of participants due to findings on history and physical exam (H&P) (18).…”

A Pilot Feasibility Study of an Extension of the Acquaintanceship Recruitment Procedure in Recent-Onset Psychosis

“…A first and frequently used procedure is advertisement through local newspapers or posters in various institutions, offering monetary compensation. The major limitation of this procedure is that subjects volunteering to participate tend to show a high rate of psychopathology and are more likely to exhibit distinctive characteristics which may confound comparisons between cases and controls (e.g., unemployed individuals; Halbreich et al, 1989;Shtasel et al, 1991).…”