Respond individually to the following 2 posts:
1. From the Fifteen Ethical Principles of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights I chose CONSENT.
Consent is the single utmost important ethical issue in research because it covers multiple purposes. Participating in research is voluntary, consent is very important because it protects patients who may suddenly become chosen to participate in the unexpected research study. (Melnyk, & Fineout-Overholt, 2019 ). Informed consent protects patients who come to medical facilities not realizing they may become subjects of a research study. To respect people’s rights the need for informed consent arises so people are able to practice their autonomy and decide on their own if they would like to participate in any research study. Once the participant agrees the consent will be initiated and from an ethical standpoint the informed consent is signed however, there has to be an ongoing dialogue between the researcher and participant about what the study entails. consent is also needed if patients have to undergo any medical procedure such as laboratory tests (Melnyk, & Fineout-Overholt, 2019 ).
Researchers must ensure all the five elements of the informed consent are documented, the nature of the procedure, the risk and benefit, reasonable alternative to the procedure, the risk and benefit of the alternative, and assessment of the patient’s understanding of the first four elements.
Informed consent may be waived in certain emergency situations where there are time constraints or if the patient is unable to communicate on their own and there is no surrogate present (Melnyk, & Fineout-Overholt, 2019 ). Furthermore, not all medical procedures demand informed consent for example the patient may be implicitly agree to take his/her blood pressure as a routine procedure.
2. According to Melnynk & Finout-Overholt (2019), “Ethics examines issues of right and wrong, good and bad, in any area of human interaction” (p.750). Ethics in research is essential to provide honest data and results, keep identities confidential, and to provide guidelines for the research. In Melnynk & Finout-Overholt (2019), they identify 15 ethical principles of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Out of the fifteen ethical principles, the principle that I find to be very important is the ethical principle of “consent”. In my practice, consent is an ethical principle that I take to be very important. Getting consent from my patients is essential because it allows the patient to give permission to intervene in a person’s private sphere. In research, “consent” works a bit differently than in my day-to-day practice. In research, according to Cahana & Hurst (2008), “Informed consent is important in research, it allows subjects to make an informed and voluntary choice to participate- or refuse to participate- in a project where they will be asked to take risks for the benefit of others.” Ways that researchers can ensure that this principle is protected is by educating the subjects on all aspects of the research. Education is important because it allows the individuals to understand what the project is about and it gives them an idea of what they are getting involved with. In addition to education, it is important to answer questions, and be open and honest of what the research study is about. This allows for people to make an educated decision.
