What are some of the major ethical issues in conducting research that impacts the advanced registered nurse? Discuss the role of the advanced registered nurse in advocating for patient safety and rights in conducting research.
Research that involves human subjects or participants raises unique and complex ethical, legal, social and political issues. Research ethics is specifically interested in the analysis of ethical issues that are raised when people are involved as participants in research. There are three objectives in research ethics. The first objective is to protect human participants. The second objective is to ensure that research is conducted in a way that serves interests of individuals, groups and/or society as a whole. Finally, the third objective is to examine specific research activities and projects for their ethical soundness, looking at issues such as the management of risk, protection of confidentiality and the process of informed consent (Yip, Han, and Sng, 2016).
The main role of humans who participate in research is to serve as sources of data. It is the duty of the researcher to protect the life, dignity, health, integrity, privacy and the right of self-determination of their subjects, (Yip, Han, and Sng, 2016). The Belmont report, created in 1974 as a result of the National Research Act, had the task of identifying basic ethical principles that should govern the conduct of those who conduct biomedical and behavioral research that involves human subjects as week as developing guidelines that assure that these types of research are conducted in alignment with these principles, (Health and Human Services.gov, 2016).
Patient advocacy is one of the main roles of the advanced registered nurse in conducting research. The Advanced registered nurse, whether a study coordinator, clinical trials nurse or principal investigator has a responsibility to promote ethical conduct of clinical research, (Grady & Edgerly, 2009). This includes, according to Grady & Edgerly, the understanding of what makes clinical research ethical in addition to understanding what clinical research is. This enables the advanced registered nurse to determine if action is needed to ensure that the research is being conducted and the patient is being treat in a way that the advanced registered nurses believes is right and ethical.
