Phase 3: Section 8
Ethical Considerations for Research
(Linked to Lecture 9)
Welcome to Phase 3 Section 8
Please read over the aims and objectives of this section and click on your theory to practice link before completing your formative questions and summative assessment. If you have difficulty understanding any of the content of this section, please discuss this with your CILG teacher in your next class.
COURSE AIMS and LEARNING OUTCOMES
The main aim of this section of the eResource is to help students appreciate the importance of ethics in health care research
By the end of this section you should be able to:-
- Identify the ethical issues involved in conducting research
- Understand the importance of non-coercion, informed consent, confidentiality and protection of data in healthcare research
- Understand how these principles are upheld in research studies
LINKING THE THEORY TO PRACTICE
Listen to the podcast below. Nurse researcher (Dr Dorry McLaughlin) from within the School of Nursing and Midwifery discusses the ethical considerations from her own experience of carrying out a study with people who have a learning disability:
Read the paper that was published from Dr McLaughlin’s research study, accessed via the link below. Consider the sections which reassure the reader that the research was ethically conducted:
Dr McLaughlins Research Paper (click here)
SELF DIRECTED ACTIVITY
It is important that nurses have an understanding of important issues in research ethics. Review your lecture notes and read the following documents:
RCN (2009) Research Ethics Guidance for Nurses. (click here)
RCN Informed Consent in Health and Social Care Research (click here)
FORMATIVE QUESTIONS
Following on from the above activity, please attempt to answer the following two formative assessment questions. You can click to receive immediate feedback on your answers. These two formative assessment questions are not marked and will not affect your overall module score. You are strongly encouraged to undertake the formative assessment questions before proceeding and prior to undertaking the summative assessment questions at the end of this section.
The correct answers for all questions will be revealed when you click on the 'Show ALL Correct Answers' button, located after Question 2.
Question 1
A nurse researcher is conducting a study exploring healthcare professionals’ experience of caring for patients with Motor Neurone Disease. During her recruitment she experiences difficulty getting healthcare professionals to take part in interviews. She works part time in a neurology ward and decided to directly approach her colleagues with the intention of persuading them to take part.
Question 2
A new drug TBX has been developed which should prevent the spread of breast cancer to bone. In order to test the efficacy of the drug a randomised controlled trial was designed. Three hundred newly diagnosed patients were recruited and randomly assigned to receive either TBX or a placebo (an exact replica of the drug in terms of size, shape and colour but with no active ingredient). In order to determine that the new drug was totally responsible for any improvement in patient outcome, no other treatments were offered to the patients. After one year of treatment, patients underwent a bone scan to look for bone metastases and the incidence of cancer in bone was compared between the two groups.
SECTION SUMMARY
This section should have helped you appreciate the importance of ethics in health care research
You should now be in a position to:
- Identify the ethical issues involved in conducting research
- Understand the importance of non-coercion, informed consent, confidentiality and protection of data in healthcare research
- Understand how these principles are upheld in research studies.
Before leaving this section, please ensure that you have achieved the learning outcomes for this section of the course.
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT
When you have completed all of the above activities you should attempt the summative QuestionMark test. Click on the QuestionMark button below to begin your summative assessment for this section.
This eResource and the QuestionMark tests have been designed to be used on a university PC using the Google Chrome web browser. It is currently not configured to be used on any mobile devices.
Please ensure that you click the ‘SUBMIT’ button after you complete each test to ensure that your scores are recorded. YOU WILL ONLY GET ONE ATTEMPT TO COMPLETE YOUR ASSESSMENT.
February 2017:
Assessment questions for this section must be completed on or before: Monday - 9th October 2017
September 2017:
Assessment questions for this section must be completed on or before: Monday - 7th May 2018
NB: You will only have one attempt to take each test.