Biomedical Scientists' Perceptions of Ethical and Social Implications: Is There a Role for Research Ethics Consultation?

Abstract

BackgroundResearch ethics consultation programs are being established with a goal of addressing the ethical, societal, and policy considerations associated with biomedical research. A number of these programs are modelled after clinical ethics consultation services that began to be institutionalized in the 1980s. Our objective was to determine biomedical science researchers' perceived need for and utility of research ethics consultation, through examination of their perceptions of whether they and their institutions faced ethical, social or policy issues (outside those mandated by regulation) and examination of willingness to seek advice in addressing these issues. We conducted telephone interviews and focus groups in 2006 with researchers from Stanford University and a mailed survey in December 2006 to 7 research universities in the U.S.FindingsA total of 16 researchers were interviewed (75% response rate), 29 participated in focus groups, and 856 responded to the survey (50% response rate). Approximately half of researchers surveyed (51%) reported that they would find a research ethics consultation service at their institution moderately, very or extremely useful, while over a third (36%) reported that such a service would be useful to them personally. Respondents conducting human subjects research were more likely to find such a service very to extremely useful to them personally than respondents not conducting human subjects research (20% vs 10%; chi2 p<0.001).ConclusionOur findings indicate that biomedical researchers do encounter and anticipate encountering ethical and societal questions and concerns and a substantial proportion, especially clinical researchers, would likely use a consultation service if they were aware of it. These findings provide data to inform the development of such consultation programs in general.

The “how” and “whys” of research: life scientists’ views of accountability

“…These perceptions were captured in a series of interviews and focus groups that explored life scientists’ views of the ethical and societal implications of their own work and of biomedical research in general. While other findings from these data have been previously reported, 28 this paper examines how life scientists think about accountability in research.…”

Ethical difficulties in nursing, educational needs and attitudes about using ethics resources

“…A score was attributed to nurses' answers to questions concerning the frequency of ethical issues. The scores were never (0), rarely (1), sometimes (2) and often (3). The summed scale score range was 0-30, where 0 indicated the least and 30 indicated the most experience with ethical problems.…”

“…1,2 For this reason, in many European health facilities, ethics consultation services are being developed, and the debate about their role is growing stronger. 1,[3][4][5][6] Although numerous studies have demonstrated that most healthcare providers face recurrent ethical problems, institutions are not always able to effectively support nursing staff. 2 In particular, the limited availability of ethics consultation services, which has been reported by authors from different countries, fails to meet the frequent and strong requests by health workers to support their ethical difficulties in situations involving the terminally ill, patient autonomy and end-of-life decisions.…”

Addressing Risks to Advance Mental Health Research

“…The purpose of the interaction is to provide information; identify, analyze, and/or deliberate about ethical issues; and recommend a course of action.” 79, p. 3 McCormick et al reported that psychiatric researchers were more likely than other researchers to find such services useful. 78 …”