Ethical Treatment of Research Participants - Paper Example

Ethics are standards or norms that govern individuals or group behavior and their relationships with other others as well as guiding how they conduct an activity. The primary objective of ethics in research is to make sure that no participants suffer severe consequences or gets harmed from the research activities. The other main concern in research ethics is to examine particular research activities and projects to discern its ethical soundness. Discussed below is the ethical treatment of research participants which include; informed consent, protection from harm, confidentiality and the problem of access.

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The informed consent: It is critical to ensure that the participant and especially human subject is fully informed about the research been conducted. The participants should be informed about the purpose, the methodology, the risks involved as well as the benefits of the project. This will enable the participant to decide whether or not to participate in the evaluation. Any additional information should be given to the participants in any event where they get distressed during the participation( Gelinas, Largent, Cohen, Kornetsky, Bierer, & Fernandez, 2018).

Another ethical treatment is the protection of the participants from any harm: Harms can either be psychological or physical like the invasion of private property, pain, stress, decreasing self-esteem or anxiety. Participants with heart conditions that are prone to risks should be screened out to avoid any possible harm to the participants whether intended or unintended.

Confidentiality and anonymity is another ethical treatment of research participants: Researches should make sure that any identifying information like disclosure of location and names is excluded from access by unauthorized observation like the published reports and documents. The researcher should show the participants how serious he or she is protecting their confidential; for instance. He or she should present the information publicly only in aggregate forms like percentages or statistics' (Gelinas et al., 2018).

Another ethical treatment of the research participants is only assessing the relevant components: The researcher should get hold of the participants who are connected to the research been conducted. The researcher should meet the necessary conditions before accessing the participants whether in an institution or an individual. The evaluations should be kept simple for the participants with the researcher focusing on the purpose of the research and how the information been gathered will be used (Hammersley,2015).

Conclusion

Ethical treatments in research should focus on ensuring a balance between the risks of harm to the research participants and the benefits of the research. This is because any information gathered using unethical means can have huge dilemmas, possible conflicts or harm. Therefore, it is essential for the researchers to comply with the ethical standards on how to treat the research participants whether humans or animals.

References

Gelinas, L., Largent, E. A., Cohen, I. G., Kornetsky, S., Bierer, B. E., & Fernandez Lynch, H. (2018). A framework for ethical payment to research participants.Retrieved on 12th March 2019 from https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsb1710591

Hammersley, M. (2015). On ethical principles for social research. International Journal and Social Research Methodology, 18(4), 433-449.Retrieved on 12th March 2019 from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13645579.2014.924169