Archana Morey

Associate Professor (OBGN)

HOD, Nursing Research Department
ACON
 Ethics is derived from the Greek word ‘Ethos’ –
which means customs, character or conduct.
 A system of moral values that is concerned
with the degree to which research
procedures adhere to professional, legal,
social obligations to study. participants.
 The conduct of research carries ethical
responsibilities toward the research subjects.
The human rights which are to be taken into
consideration are:
 1. The right to choose whether to participate,
and the opinion to with draw without being
penalized as the research continues.
 2. The right to full information about the
research, what will be expected and the right to
raise questions about the research as it
progresses.
 Right to protection from unnecessary risk or
harm as a result of participating in the
research projects
 The right to be informed of any potential risk
or harm that might be incurred as a result of
participating in the study
 The right to privacy, dignity and
confidentiality
 The right to be informed about research
results.
I. The right to self determination includes
voluntary consent. This must include the
following
1. The purpose of the project and it’s general
value
2. All procedure used in research and why are
they used
3. The part that the subject holds in research
including time, and energy the research will
take
4. Any possible pain, discomfort, stress or
less of autonomy or dignity
5. How privacy, confidentiality and anonymity
will be guarded
6. The manner in which data will be used
Informed consent implies that promises will
be kept.
II. The right to privacy too in our society is a
tradition of considerable importance.
 Concealed observers, cameras, microphones
or use of private correspondence without
the subjects knowledge and permission are
invasion of privacy.
 If these practices are to be employed, the
researcher should explain the reasons and
secure privacy.
III. Confidentiality and anonymity

IV. The right to maintain self respect and

dignity

V. The right to refuse to participate

VI. The right to services

VII. Vulnerable subjects
Children, mentally ill, mentally retarded,
and captive persons such as prisoners, men
and women in the armed forces, students,
the dependent poor, friends, and family of
researcher and employees all are vulnerable.
 Study of the problem or question under study
must be ethical.
 The problem or question must be worthwhile
 The design and methods of the study must
meet established scientific criteria.
 The study must be designed with in accepted
ethical boundaries.
 Participant’s status
 Study goals
 Type of data
 Procedures – data collection
 Nature of the commitment – duration
 Sponsorship – funded by an agency or self
 Participant selection – method
 Potential risk
 Potential benefits
 Alternatives
 Compensation
 Confidentiality pledge
 Voluntary consent
 Right to withdraw and withhold information
 Contact information of the researcher
 The Nazi medical experiments of the 1930s
and 1940s are the most famous examples of
recent disregard for ethical conduct.
 The ten points of the Nuremberg Code
 The Nazi program of research involved the use
of prisoners of war and racial enemies in
numerous experiments designed to test the
human endurance and human reaction to
disease and untested drugs.
 The studies were unethical not only because
they exposed those people to permanent
physical harm and even death but because
subjects could not refuse participation.
 Medical treatment was deliberately withheld
to study the course of the untreated disease.
 Even more recently, it was revealed in 1993
that US federal agencies had sponsored
radiation experiments since the 1940s on
hundreds of people, many of them prisoners
or elderly hospital patients.
 There are research problems in which
participant’s rights and study demands are
put in direct conflict, posing ethical dilemmas
for researchers.
 The examples of such situations are
discussed as follows.
1. Research question – how empathetic are
nurses in their treatment of patients in the
ICU
Ethical Dilemma: ethics require that
participants be aware of their role in a study.
 If the researcher inform nurses participating
in this study that their degree of empathy in
treating the ICU patients will be scrutinized,
will their behavior be normal?
 If the nurses usual behavior is altered because
of the known presence of research observers,
the findings will not be valid.
2. Research question: what are the coping
mechanisms of parents whose children have
terminal illness?
Ethical Dilemma – the researcher may need
to probe into the psychological state of the
parents at a vulnerable time in their lives
 Such probing could be painful and even
traumatic.
 Yet knowledge of the parents’ coping
mechanisms might help to design more
effective ways of dealing with parents’ grief
and anger.
 The researchers are obligated to advance
knowledge and develop the highest quality
evidence for practice, using the best
methods available.
 However they must adhere to the dictates of
ethical rules that have been developed to
protect human rights.
 It is precisely because of such conflicts and
dilemma that codes of ethics have been
developed to guide the efforts of researchers.
 A code may be defined as conventionalized
set of rules or expectations devised for a
specific purpose.
 The Belmont report articulated three primary
ethical principles on which standards of
ethical conduct in research are based:
1. Beneficence
2. Respect for human dignity
3. Justice
 It involves the protection of participants from
physical and psychological harm, protection of
participants from exploitation and the
performance of some good.
 It involves the participants’ right to self
determination which means participants
have the freedom to control their own
activities, including study participation.
 This also encompasses the right to full
disclosure of all the details of the study to
the subjects.
 It includes the right of fair treatment (both in
the selection of participants and during the
course of the study) and the right to privacy.
 Privacy can be maintained through
anonymity or through formal confidentiality
procedures that the participants provide.
 Henceforth, code of ethics means a specific set
of professional behaviors and values the
professional interpreter must know and must
abide by, including confidentiality, accuracy,
privacy, and integrity.
 http://www.icmr.nic.in/guidelines/ICMR_Ethic
al_Guidelines_2017.pdf
 http://icmr.nic.in/ethical_guidelines.pdf
 http://www.nitrd.nic.in/WriteReadData/userfil
es/file/Ethical%20Guidelines.pdf