Ethics in Nursing Research

Open AccessISSN: 2167-1168

Journal of Nursing & Care

Book Reviews

Volume 11:3, 2022

*Address for Correspondence: Dilshada Rashid, Department of Pediatric

Surgery, SKIMS, Srinagar, Kashmir, India, E-mail: [email protected]

terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted

use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author

and source are credited.

Received: 05 March, 2022, Manuscript No. jnc-21-53252; Editor assigned: 08

March, 2022, PreQC No. P-53252; Reviewed: 19 March, 2022, QC No. Q-53252;

Revised: 20 March, 2022, Manuscript No. R-53252; Published: 27 March, 2022,

DOI: 10.37421/2167-1168.2022.11.520

Ethics in Nursing Research

Dilshada Rashid*

Department of Pediatric Surgery, SKIMS, Srinagar, Kashmir, India

Introduction

The Ethics are the moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour.

Research ethics may be referred to as doing what is mostly and legally right

in research. They are actually norms for conduct that distinguish between

right and wrong, and acceptable & unacceptable behaviour. Knowingly that

research is “a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively

shared.” Research is a multi-stage process. Ethics are central to this process.

Researcher need to take care of various ethical issues at different levels of this

process [1-4].

Definition: Ethics in nursing research can be defined as the act of

moral principles which the researcher has to follow while conducting nursing

research to ensure the rights and welfare of individuals, groups or community

under study.

Importance of Ethics in Nursing Re-

Ethics within healthcare are important because workers must recognize

healthcare dilemmas, make good judgments and decision based on their

values while keeping within the laws that govern them. The important reasons

to support importance of ethics in nursing research are:

• Protect the vulnerable group & other study participants from harmful

effects of the experimental intervention.

• Participants are safeguarded from exploitation by researchers.

• Establish risk-benefit ratio for the study subjects.

• Ensure the fullest respect, dignity, privacy, disclosure of information &

fair treatment for study subjects.

• Build the capability of subjects to accept or reject participation in study

and to have access to informed or written consent for participation in

research study.

Ethical Principles

The three broad principles on which standards of ethical conduct in

research are based: Beneficence, Respect for human dignity and Justice.

Principle of beneficence

Beneficence imposes a duty on researchers to minimize harm and

maximize benefits. Human research should be intended to produce benefits

for participants or a situation that is more common for others. Participants must

be provided with maximum physical, psychological, social & religious comfort

and undue disturbance and time utilization of the subjects should be avoided.

Participants must be assured that their information will not be used against

them in any way e,g person reporting drug abuse should not be exposed to the

of criminal authorities. Research must be conducted by scientifically qualified

expert. This principle covers multiple dimensions:

• Freedom from Harm

• Freedom from Exploitation

• Benefits from Research

• The Risk Benefit Ratio if the perceived risks to participants outweigh

the anticipated benefits of the research, the research should be either

abandoned or redesigned.

Principle of respect of human dignity

This principle includes the right to self-determination and right to full

disclosure. This principle of the ethics emphasizes on the freedom of choice,

where participants have right to accept or reject to be a part of the research

study. In addition, volunteers must be provided full information about the

research study and an informed consent must be obtained, preferably a written

one. The researcher under this principle must ensure following:

• Participants have full right to question the researcher for any additional

information or clarification of doubts.

• Participants have right to quit from the study at any stage of the

research study.

• A fully informed consent must be taken from the participants. In case

of foetus, child, psychological, neurological, physical inability to give

informed consent; this can be obtained from parent or legal guardians.

The contents of an informed consent must include the

following:

Purpose of the research study, Procedural process & any intervention

involved in the study, expected time & nature of participant’s involvement in

the study, type of data /information to be obtained for respondents, details

of the support available in case any harm occurs to participants, details of

the potential discomfort or risk for participants in the study, description of the

expected benefits of the research study, there are certain ethical dilemmas

where taking consent may distort the actual situation & research finding.

Example: A study on nurses’ time utilization in productive & non-productive

activities during working period , Behaviour of the nurses with patients and

their family in surgical wards, Performance observation of the nurses in

medical ward.

Such ethical dilemmas must be dealt carefully, where informed consent

may be avoided until research does not actually harm the participants or

breach their privacy & take permission from competent authority. However,

strictly speaking, the ethical principles never permit this.

Principle of Justice

This principle concerns justice, which includes participants’ right to fair

treatment and their right to privacy.

• The fair & non-discriminatory selection of the participant such as any

risk & benefits will be equally shared by study participants.

J Nurs Care, Volume 11:3, 2022Rashid D

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• The fair treatment principle covers issues other than participant

selection. the right to fair treatment means that researchers must

treat people who decline to participate (or who with draw from

after initial agreement)in a non-prejudicial manner ,that they must

honour all agreements made with participants (including payment if

promised),that they demonstrate respect for the beliefs, habits & life

styles of people from different background or cultures.

• Anonymity of participants & confidentiality of information must be

maintained.

• No information collected from study participants can be used for other

than research purpose.

• The vulnerable subjects such as children, pregnant women, mentally

ill, institutionalized (prisoners) people etc., who are easily accessible

must be protected from overuse & undue use for research purpose.

• Obtain identifying information (e.g. name, address) from participants

only when it is essential to do so. Destroy identifying information as

quickly as is feasible.

References

1. Polit, Denise F., and Cheryl Tatano Beck. “Nursing research: Principles and

methods.” Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (2004).

2. Sharma, Suresh. “Nursing research and statistics.” Elsevier Health Sci (2018).

3. Polit, Denise F., and Cheryl Tatano Beck. “Nursing research: Generating and

assessing evidence for nursing practice.” Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (2008).

4. Showkat, Nayeem, and Huma Parveen. "In-depth interview." Quadrant-I (e-Text)

(2017).

How to cite this article: Rashid, Dilshada. “Ethics in Nursing Research.” J Nurs

Care 11 (2022): 520.