When reviewing nursing literature, it is very easy to understand why ethics is vital to any reliable research being obtained. This is because, as we have seen throughout history, in order to keep advancing in medical knowledge, new ideas must be tried and risks taken because of the potential these discoveries have to change patients’ lives. However, in order for these new discoveries to be made, not only must there be a researcher planning the study, but there also must be a group of people willing to participate. And with the group of human participants comes the requirement of ethics in order to establish and agreed upon standard of values which make the study beneficial to not only the researcher but to the participant as well. Two ethical
…show more content…
This means researchers are required to always place the welfare of the patient first and consciously weigh the risks and benefits of any given study in order to determine the greatest good. Nonmaleficence is an ethical principle that works alongside this and is defined as “the expectation of not inflicting intentional harm when dealing with individuals” (Boswell & Cannon, 2014) or put more simply, is the assumption that researchers will do no harm in terms of patient care.
There are a variety of reasons why ethics are important in nursing research, but the primary focus is to ensure the rights and welfare of the individuals being studied. The principle “Do no harm” is a fundamental obligation in ethics, however even while avoiding negative outcomes for patients, the risk of unintentional exposure to harm is still a possibility (Belmont, 1979). This is because inevitably, when conducting research and utilizing techniques that have never been used before, risk is unavoidable. Participants must be able to believe that those conducting the study are continually weighing the possible risk of harm with the potential of life-saving research that could benefit the participant and the population as a whole. In this conflict, beneficence and nonmaleficence work together by enabling researchers and participants to …show more content…
At the very start, they must decide if the aim of their study will be actively pursuing benefits for the subjects or cautiously seeking prevention. For example, if there were a study to observe the side effects of a new medication, researchers would need to fully outline the potential issues along with reasons why the chosen approach would be justified in terms of the possible knowledge that could be gained. This would require the use of “risk-benefit ratios” by assessing the number, type, and degree of potential risks and what those are valued at on a participant’s harm scale (Fouka, Mantzorou, 2011). In addition to this, during planning they would also need to research if a similar study had taken place before. If they were to find that in the past others had tried similar ideas that resulted in discomfort for those involved, they would need to set out to determine a different approach that would promise to minimize the distress obtained by participants as much as possible. (Watson, McKenna, Cowman, Keady, 2008). Practical examples of this could be nurses outlining interventions to reduce the invasiveness of a planned procedure or researchers supplying support for participants who experienced unintentional or unanticipated distress during the study (Watson, McKenna, Cowman, Keady,
This means researchers are required to always place the welfare of the patient first and consciously weigh the risks and benefits of any given study in order to determine the greatest good. Nonmaleficence is an ethical principle that works alongside this and is defined as “the expectation of not inflicting intentional harm when dealing with individuals” (Boswell & Cannon, 2014) or put more simply, is the assumption that researchers will do no harm in terms of patient care.
There are a variety of reasons why ethics are important in nursing research, but the primary focus is to ensure the rights and welfare of the individuals being studied. The principle “Do no harm” is a fundamental obligation in ethics, however even while avoiding negative outcomes for patients, the risk of unintentional exposure to harm is still a possibility (Belmont, 1979). This is because inevitably, when conducting research and utilizing techniques that have never been used before, risk is unavoidable. Participants must be able to believe that those conducting the study are continually weighing the possible risk of harm with the potential of life-saving research that could benefit the participant and the population as a whole. In this conflict, beneficence and nonmaleficence work together by enabling researchers and participants to …show more content…
At the very start, they must decide if the aim of their study will be actively pursuing benefits for the subjects or cautiously seeking prevention. For example, if there were a study to observe the side effects of a new medication, researchers would need to fully outline the potential issues along with reasons why the chosen approach would be justified in terms of the possible knowledge that could be gained. This would require the use of “risk-benefit ratios” by assessing the number, type, and degree of potential risks and what those are valued at on a participant’s harm scale (Fouka, Mantzorou, 2011). In addition to this, during planning they would also need to research if a similar study had taken place before. If they were to find that in the past others had tried similar ideas that resulted in discomfort for those involved, they would need to set out to determine a different approach that would promise to minimize the distress obtained by participants as much as possible. (Watson, McKenna, Cowman, Keady, 2008). Practical examples of this could be nurses outlining interventions to reduce the invasiveness of a planned procedure or researchers supplying support for participants who experienced unintentional or unanticipated distress during the study (Watson, McKenna, Cowman, Keady,