How often are ethics approval and informed consent reported in publications on health research in Cameroon? A five-year review.

We assessed the extent of research ethics approval and informed consent reporting in publications emanating from Cameroon and indexed in PubMed from 2005-2009. In our review of 219 full-length articles, we found that 57.53% reported ethics approval, 70.78% informed consent, and 50.68% both ethics approval and informed consent. Reporting these procedures was more common in randomized clinical trials than in other study designs. Also, 59.52% of the articles on vulnerable populations documented ethics approval and 76.19% documented informed consent. This study also identified some structures for ethics review and recommends some next steps for research on the quality of ethics review in Cameroon.