Research Ethics for Children as Subjects

Ethical guidelines are the frameworks and standards that govern psychologists in conducting a morally justified research to respect the rights of the participants. Since the researchers are responsible for the welfare of the participants, it is vital for them to act in accordance with a specific strict code of ethics and moral principles. One of the common ethical framework used in many psychological studies is IVCARD where ‘I’ stands for Informed Consent, ‘V’ equals Voluntary Participation, ‘C’ is Confidentiality, ‘A’ being Accurate Reporting, ‘R’ is Right To Withdraw and ‘D’ as Do No Harm. Although there are few disadvantages of these strict ethical guidelines, the advantages outweigh them. This is evident from two of the

To ensure that a researcher’s enthusiasm for knowledge and understanding doesn’t let them get carried away, clear guidelines for ethical behaviour in research, a Code of Ethics, have been established by governments, institutions and various professional societies such as the American Psychological Association(APA), the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI).

The Belmont Report identified three principles essential to the ethical conduct of research with humans:

Ethics describe a set of rules, codes, and guidelines that individuals and professionals live by to separate right from wrong and acceptable behavior from undesirable behavior. As such, the study of ethics is not grounded on the law but rather a perception of what people ought to do in the alignment of fairness, rights, obligations, and benefits to the society. Researchers in the field of psychology must follow specific rules, codes, and guidelines in every study. However, like many sets of rules provided, ethical codes may not cover every situation hence the necessity of analyzing past, current and future aspects of ethics in research pertaining to social sciences.

The concept of ethics in scientific research has continuously evolved over several hundred years; records of the first experiments on humans, documented in the bible, date back to 550 BC.1 Throughout history, notorious cases of scientific misconduct have established guidelines and set the precedence for the governing standards of ethical conduct today.

Historically, children have been regarded as a vulnerable population because of their decreased autonomy and reduced competence to provide informed consent as compared to adults (Schwenzer, 2008). Given their acknowledged vulnerability, those who research children often encounter difficulties while conducting their research, as full IRB review is required for most studies with children, despite the risk for harm (Fisher et al., 2013). Studies that would be exempt from IRB review with adult participants, including education tests, survey or interview procedures, or observations of public behavior, require IRB review with child participants (45 CFR 46.101). However, some researchers advocate that when appropriate considerations are in

It is important that prior to giving consent, all participants must have all information, (apart from the main aim and nature of the research) about the research and what is required of them. They must also give their informed consent to be able to participate. The children never gave their informed consent to participate in this research, nor were they told that they were even participating in an experiment until it was revealed by a newspaper 60 years later. 3) Right to

In research, the principle of respect for persons (i.e. autonomy) is concerned with an individual’s capacity to act according to their own will and life plans. Simply put, respect for persons states that a person should be free from external control, thereby choosing to participate in research voluntarily. Now, in regard to pediatric research, children are considered as a vulnerable population due to their diminished autonomy. What is meant by diminished autonomy is that for one reason or another, an individual is controlled by others. In this case, children are, in sense, controlled by their parents. Now, this is an essential part of

Subsequently, Alderson et al conducted semi-structured tape-recorded interviews with 40 neonatal staff, and the parents of 80 babies in the units and in their homes. Within the realm of children’s rights, there is a mutual consensus that children have the right to be researched properly; especially the most young and vulnerable. Although this is not a specific provision of the UNCRC, it can arguably be derived from reading between the lines of Article 12 (the right to provide opinions), Article 13 (the right to freedom of expression), Article 36 (the right to protection from exploitation), and Article 3.3 (the right to the highest possible standards being used in work involving children). As such, the babies who had neuro-development issues, and whose parents consented to the study were selected via purposive sampling in order to involve babies with a variety of medical conditions and ethic and socio-economic backgrounds. Whilst this may not represent

The application of moral principles in the procedure of planning, recruiting subjects, conducting research and publishing the results in the context of conducting research involving human participants can be called ethics. These principles comprise treating people with respect, consideration of all possible risks; moreover, the welfare of the participants. And treating all the subjects with fairness and equity.

In order to overcome any ethical dilemmas, children younger than age 7 who are not considered mature enough to assent to research participation will be excluded. According to Grove, Burns and Gray (2013) by the age of 7, a child is considered to be developmentally able to have concrete operations of thought and have the ability to assent to participation (Grove, Burns, & Gray, 2013). The study’s sample will be changed to 7-17 years of age. Using children as research subjects is said to be influenced by the therapeutic nature of risk verses the benefits. Since the benefits of this study outweighs the risks by providing information relevant to improving clinical outcomes, it would be considered ethical to utilize a control group

Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Medical research can be associated with physical, psychological, social, legal, or economic risk, and cognitive, institutional, economic, and social factors can result in so-called vulnerabilities. As such, certain subjects, including fetuses, oppressed social groups, those with a reduced capacity to consent, the terminally ill, and economically or educationally disadvantaged persons may be vulnerable to compulsion and participation in research studies. In addition, children or adults with cognitive deficits may find it difficult to understand the implications of research may therefore not be able to fully evaluate consent information. However, knowing these vulnerabilities and vulnerable populations is it moral to still have them enroll themselves in medical research and how do we go about asking the tough question to

When conducting a research project it is inevitable that the researcher will have to gain consent from the participants. However, gaining consent from a child to participate in a research project is far more complex than gaining consent from an adult (Noret, n.d). Children under eighteen years old are not legally

Researchers are no strangers to the ethical dilemma. Dr. David Katz, a director of Yale University 's Prevention Research Center who has worked with a wide range of