Blog
5 Common Errors in the Informed Consent Process
Informed consent is the foundation of ethical research; ensuring participants are fully aware of what they’re agreeing to before participating in a study. After reviewing consent forms for the past decade, here are the 5 most common errors that we (an IRB) encounter....
Pearl IRB 2024 Year-End Schedule
Full board meetings occur Monday afternoons at 4:30 PM Eastern. Complete study submissions received by the EOB Monday will be reviewed at the Monday meeting of the following week. To ensure a timely review of your study, please refer to the Example Timeline for Full...
Snowball Sampling: Is it ethical to pay your study subjects to recruit participants on your behalf?
When new participants are recruited by current participants to become part of a study sample, it is called “snowball sampling.” This is a non-probability sampling technique that can be a practical way to identify and recruit individuals with certain characteristics to...
Improving Exempt Submissions: 7 Tips to Reduce Revision Requests
When evaluating exempt protocols, we often get the comment, “Hey! This study is super simple, and obviously exempt. What’s the deal with the revisions?!”. While this is often very much the case, the IRB must evaluate what is presented against what is required by...
Common Rule Exceptions to the Use of a Single IRB for Multi-site Research Ends After May 11, 2023
On October 8, 2020, Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), issued an exception determination as permitted by 45 CFR 46.114(b)(2)(ii) stating that certain categories of cooperative research...