Ethical issues

• what are ethical issues?

  these arise when a conflict exists between the rights of the participants in research studies and the goals of research to produce authentic , valid and worthwhile data
• what is informed consent?

  pps must be told the aims and procedure of the investigation and about any possible risks they could be subject to + the right to withdraw at any point of the investigation , then they should make an informed decision about whether tp participate in the research study or not without feeling obliged or coerced
• why dont researchers wish to disclose info about the study to pps?

  could lead to demand characteristics being presented = bias
• what are the various ways of dealing with informed consent?

  • prior general consent - consenting to being deceived in study
  • presumptive consent - researcher gathers opinions from a similar group to pps to whether the study is acceptable or not w/o informing the actual group of pps = allows demand characteristics to be eliminated
  • retrospective - pps asked for consent after study is conducted
• what is deception?

  the act of deliberately withholding or misleading information from pps at any stage of the research study
• when is deception only seen as acceptable ?

  when the pps could guess the true nature of the aims of the investigation or when the deception will not cause distress
• what is the solution to deception ?

  debriefing :

  • all pps should be debriefed either verbally or written
  • pps should be made aware of the aims and anything info they didn't know prior to the investigation such as control + experimental groups
  • pps should have the right to choose to withhold or withdraw their data
• what is another solution for deception apart from debriefing should the pps be allowed to ?

  counselling
• Protection from harm:

  • pps should be protected from any psychological and physical harm they wouldn't encounter in their everyday life
  • all through the investigation pps should be reminded that they have the right to withdraw
• what is a cost - benefit analysis ?

  analysis carried out before the study by the ethics committee whereby the pros and cons are weighed up to determine whether the study will be ethical
• Privacy + confidentiality :

  • right of privacy - pps have the right to control info about themselves such as how much is used / released
  • confidentiality - refers to the rights pps have which concern any personal data of theirs being protected (enshrined under the law of Data Protection Act)
• what is a solution to maintaining privacy and confidentiality of pps?

  anonymity can be maintained

  • achieved by researchers not recording any personal details of their pps so none of the results of data can be traced back to them
  • researchers can refer to pps as numbers or letters e.g HM case study
  • pps should be reminding during both debrief and briefing that their data will be protected