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The Ethical Issue of Participants Giving Informed Consent before a Study

Decent Essays

Ethical Issues: One major ethical issue before a study can be conducted is that participants must give informed consent before they participate. The Nuremburg Code from 1947 says that individuals must give voluntary consent if the study is associated with human subjects (Saks & Allsop, 2007). Therefore, according to the code, the elderly patients have the right to refuse participation and I cannot and do not have the right to influence or ask these patients to participate. Elderly patients must give informed consent before the interviews are conducted and agree to provide information to the study. Ethical approval from the institutional review board on campus will be acquired before the start of the study. There is an agency in Canada that consists of the CIHR, SSHRC, and the NSERC, with the purpose of governing research ethics. The autonomy of participants in the study must be respected and that they should be able to decide whether or not to take part in the research without being interference. All aspects of the study must be explained to the elderly patients, such as the purpose, risks/harm, and benefits. Although there may not be physical harm from this study, there can be psychological harm due to elderly patients bringing up the social issues they face and how it connects with the issue. Participants also have the right to withdraw from the study or withdraw data that has been collected on them at any time (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, 2010). Another ethical issue is

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