Social Research Association’s Ethical Guidelines Coursework

Introduction

According to elementary common sense if a person can be accused of a crime that will threaten his reputation and the way of life as a whole, it is necessary to know precisely where the line is crossed between the forbidden and the allowed. Theoretically, this aspect should concern the unethical practice of scientific researches. Impetuous development of medicine, the occurrence of new technologies, the expansion of possibilities of influencing human life, and the integrity of the organism and the personality have led to the development of certain ethical principles and rules of behaviour that should answer this call of time. The ethical guidelines published by the Social Research Association are the perfect example of a set of recommendations that in the light of the aforementioned issues seek to “document widely held principles of research and to identify the factors which obstruct their implementation.”(Social Research Association, 2003). This paper provides an overview of these guidelines in the context of ethical issues to consider in investigating relationships between people with mental disorders and their carers.

Discussion

The ethical guidelines published by Social Research Association include different aspects from which directly related to the issue of ethics toward patients can be outlined as follows:

• Widening the scope of social research – when related to the subject of this paper, it means the possibility to influence the outcomes.
• Avoiding misuse of data collected. (Social Research Association, 2003)
• Avoiding unnecessary intrusions in private lives.
• Obtaining consent – a difficult choice to make where “research is liable to be intrusive, and intrusion is only legitimate if consent is obtained.”(Spicker, 2007) On the other hand in the case of the relation of patients and carers “the methods used, and even the presence of a researcher, may alter the behaviour of research subjects.”(Spicker, 2007)
• Protecting the interests of subjects in terms of confidentiality of records and identities disclosure. (Social Research Association, 2003)

Other ethical considerations might require further study on the area of their implementation included in the findings of relevant literature similar to the case of patients with mental disorders. The separate consideration of patients with mental illnesses could lie in the fact that they are “generally regarded as vulnerable research participants because they are considered to be completely or partly unable to make autonomous decisions regarding their participation”(Koivisto et al., 2001).

In Koivisto and Janhonen the issue of consent has been given a certain emphasis in regards of patients with mental illnesses stating that “The capacity to consent is the main question to be considered when the participants are psychiatric patients recovering from a psychotic illness, because these disorders may limit the ability to understand correctly what involvement in research means.”(Koivisto et al., 2001) This emphasis implies that there is a real need for more guidance to make a decision when outlining the measures for the evaluation of that capacity.

Conclusion

Yan and Munir outlined the ethical principles regarding children and people with developmental disabilities, where this topic also could be related to the subject of this paper due to the fact that children and people with developmental disabilities fall into the category of vulnerable populations. The conducted research outlined five ethical dimensions which are principles of human rights, principle of validity, principle of distributive justice, principle of beneficence and nonmaleficence, and the principle of autonomy. The findings of this research concluded that “codes that govern research on human participants do not yet apply with equal force to such vulnerable groups and special ethical challenges remain”(Yan and Munir, 2004).

References

1. KOIVISTO, K., JANHONEN, S., LATVALA, E. & VAISANEN, L. (2001) Applying ethical guidelines in nursing research on people with mental illness. Nurs Ethics, 8, 328-39.
2. SOCIAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (2003) Ethical Guide Lines.
3. SPICKER, P. (2007) Research Without ConsentSocial Research Update 51, 1-4. Web.
4. YAN, E. G. & MUNIR, K. M. (2004) Regulatory and ethical principles in research involving children and individiuals with developmental disabilities. Ethics & Behavior, 14, 31.