"Consent" in passive voice to refer to subject giving consent?

Question

I noticed a usage I consider odd while copy editing, and I'm hoping someone can explain it. Here are two examples from published academic work:

Participants were consented to the study between 13 July 2009 and 14 February 2013, and randomised between 15 July 2009 and 18 February 2013. (link)

Thirteen patients were consented to the study. (link)

Based on the context, I understand them as meaning that the participants consented to the study. However, I find it curious that these samples write in the passive voice rather than the active voice because

I thought consent was only an intransitive verb, which means it can't be passive voice. That's how Merriam-Webster classifies it. To my knowledge, "the researchers consent participants" or "participants consent the study" don't work; "participants consent to the study" does.

Other verbs could work in the passive voice, like "participants were enrolled in the study." But multiple writers have decided to use this phrasing with consent.

My question: Is passive-voice consent a trend or something that is approaching accepted usage, a kind of error that happened to make it past some editors, or something that has been long accepted but not noticed?

user 66974 · Answer

A check with Google Books suggests that the passive constructions with “consent”, namely be/is/was/were consented to are on a downtrend rather than on an uptrend, from which probably the fact that they look unusual to today’s readers.

Answered by user 66974 on February 16, 2021

Tinfoil Hat · Answer

To consent a patient appears to be medical jargon . . .

A surgeon who fails to consent a patient adequately for an operation
is in breach of his duty of care to that
patient.

You can use scare quotes to signify jargon . . .

Opportunities to "consent" a patient abound on the
wards.

If you really don't like jargon, be sure to put an ugh after the offending term:

So much is written about informed consent—from how students and
residents are taught to “consent” a patient (ugh) to the challenging
of patients’ decision-making capability should they refuse recommended
treatment.

So there's your transitive, jargony verb.
Active: We consented the patients.
Passive: The patients were consented [by us].
It also appears that you can consent a patient to [something] and consent a patient to [do something].
.
See also: When to use scare quotes in formal writing:

Use scare quotes to indicate technical jargon: Scare marks may also signal to the reader that you’re using technical jargon. But
avoid jargon if you can.

"Consent" in passive voice to refer to subject giving consent?

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