Gaining Access at Ethical Considerations - Coursework Example

Gaining Access at Ethical Considerations Introduction In this present day context, depression has evolved as a common phenomenon amid the people throughout the globe. A major proportion of the people who gets affected by the ill-effects of depression are identified as the old people, who often face depressive moods owing to several factors. This in turn leads towards using medications by these people, which may affect their health and impose negative impact upon their lives owing to the increased level of side effects (NIH, n.d.). Ethical Considerations Prior to conducting any research study, certain ethical concerns need to be considered for maintain its reliability along with validity. In this similar context, one of the ethical considerations, which requires to be considered in this research study, is the ‘Informed Consent’. Observably, various ethical committees around the globe such as ‘American Psychological Association’ (APA) and ‘Ethics Review Board’ (ERB) have set guidelines on seeking consent from the participants prior to conducting a study. Permission to carry out the research efficiently must also be considered before the commencement of the research. Furthermore, there lays the requirement of clarifying the queries of the participants and unveil all the information to them relating to the study. The informed consent must introduce the purpose of the research to the participants, apart from depicting its procedures, duration, investigations, benefits and compensations (World Health Organization, 2001). The other important ethical considerations to be followed in this research study, as per the ethical committee are ‘privacy’ & ‘confidentiality’. From a conceptual standpoint, privacy necessitates the researchers to maintain control on situations and time taken in interacting with others. Apart from privacy, a researcher must maintain standards of confidentiality as stated by ethical committee. In terms of privacy, it must be ensured that the information gathered from the participants is handled as a topmost priority and must never disclose their individual data without authorisation (Kapp, 2006). The next important ethical consideration relates to the factors concerning compensation and incentives provided to the participants of a study. In this circumstance, utmost focus should be laid upon the fact that the participants are well informed about the incentives that they will receive for making their contribution to the study in the form of greater participation. Hence, the researcher must need to prioritize the issue of payment and must pay the full amount to the participants that have been mentioned earlier. The researcher must compensate to the participants in case there occurs any kind of injury during the research in the form of compensating for supplementary care (Groth, 2010). On a further note, it is required to respect the autonomy of the individuals. The participants must be provided the responsibility to withdraw from the research, even if they have earlier agreed to the consent and must never be forced to participate in the study. Apart from this, the participants must be provided with voluntary support in order to join the research and evade causing harm to the participants. As the participants are the patients in this particular research study, the medical professionals such as the physicians have to play imperative role in ensuring that the health standards does not get deteriorated owing to any sort of complexity taking place in the research. The older people, who are already facing stressful situations, need to be handled properly and fulfilment of their requirements must be ensured (Grant & Sugarman, 2004). Managing ‘conflict of interests’ is another area, which requires the researcher to give due consideration based on the fact that conflicts does not arise among the participants during the course of the research. The research must ensure that there does not lay any ambiguous relation amid the involved parties. Furthermore, the researcher must adhere to the importance of the fact that the participants are the core resources of the study and they must not be forced to perform for ascertaining the research objectives (Lo & Field, 2004). Apart from the ethical considerations discussed above, the researcher must also seek permission from the respective university or college for conducting the study. In this context, the research should meet the required standards and able to satisfy the criteria and documentation before proceeding with the research. The data collected, analysed and utilized for the research study must be furnished with the ethics committee, doctors and gatekeepers who should be well aware of varied research procedures (ICMR, 2006). More importantly, the researcher must also adhere to the political, institutional and social scenario before the conduct of the research, which might restrict in weakening the course of the study in future. Moreover, ethical consideration regarding publication of the report must also be taken into concern with prior approval. There must not be any duplication in the publishing of reports and thus measures must be taken to ensure that only public information is disclosed. The researcher must also work on the fact that the disclosed facts will not hurt the sentiments of any group or individual associated with the research (World Health Organization, 2013). Data Collection Data collection refers to the technique of gathering relevant data with the help of quantitative and quantitative techniques and converting the raw data into meaningful information for further data analysis. The research study, which is mainly concerned about analysing the side effects of anti-depressants on older people in the UK, used a pilot study with the help of quantitative approach. The rationale for selecting pilot study in this research is to enhance the validity and the reliability of the research in the form of designing a questionnaire. The research needs to utilise the questionnaire with the pilot study to improve research validity. The individuals participating in the pilot study may be asked to provide their valuable feedbacks that will certainly allow the researcher to make suitable changes in the research. Furthermore, pilot study can be beneficial in the research, as it will be helpful to assess the time taken by the participants to complete the study. Moreover, it will enable the researcher to acquire a basic knowledge of the time taken and judge whether the time taken for the study is reasonable or not (Blessing & Chakrabarti, 2009). The pilot study has been conducted in the study with the motive of reducing the number of ambiguous and unnecessary questions that might emerge from the feedbacks obtained from the participants. In addition, it is projected that the conduct of pilot study will certainly enable the researcher to acquire the idea of gaining adequate responses from the respondents of the pilot study. In case, it is found that the responses are inadequate, the researcher can modify or eliminate such questions. With the assistance of pilot study, the researcher will be able to establish that the responses received from the pilot study participants are similar to the study requirements and can be implemented for conducting future research in relation to the similar subject matter (Hassan, Schattner & Mazza, 2006). Pilot study can also serve helpful in the design of a questionnaire by enabling the researcher to re-scale the framed questions in case the participants do not make any valid response. Furthermore, pilot study provides the scope of reducing and eliminating the excess questions framed or designed for the study (Staplin, 2011). The rationale behind the framing of close-ended questions is to analyse the responses of the participants in accordance with the research objectives. These questions are helpful in the study, as these will provide a practical knowledge about the participants and their responses towards the use of anti-depressant drugs. Furthermore, with the design of such questions, the researcher will be able to maintain validity in the research. Furthermore, to reduce negative effect upon the validity of the gathered information, the researcher can analyse the findings with the help of using suitable tools and software in an efficient manner (AcademyHealth, 2004). Observably, the initial questions have been designed in order to gather a detailed knowledge about the basic information of the participants that entail disease, age along with gender and eligibility. This ensures that right individuals are being selected for the study. The other questions seek to gather information relating to the health of patients, symptoms and their regular activities. Furthermore, the questions have been designed in such a manner that would result in deliverance of optimum feedback from the participants. Specially mentioning, the questions have been kept as close-ended for the non-participant nurses that would sought to overcome the limitations while disclosing valuable information. Furthermore, to improve the content of the information and reduce biasness, the technique of designing the questionnaire would play a significant role for the researcher. The questions also aimed at determining the medication procedures that the participants mainly follow, enabling the researcher to fulfil the research objectives. To select the best participants for the research, a quantitative approach has been followed. This certainly supported in ensuring the validity of the questions and answering the same in terms of ‘who, what, when, where and how’ (Balnaves & Caputi, 2001). The close-ended questions have been chosen for the purpose of collecting relevant data as a part of ‘descriptive survey design’. This design facilitated to procure and gather the most relevant data from the participants within their own working environment, enabling them to remain quite comfortable (Wood & Kerr, 2010). Furthermore, the ‘random-probability sampling’ method used for the research study enabled in providing equal chances of participation to the respondents. Furthermore, the descriptive design supported in improving the reliability as well as the validity of the information gathered from the participants. The questionnaire, comprising certain specific close-ended questions, aimed at enhancing the research content through the determination of population parameters and testing the statistical hypotheses developed for the study. Data Analysis & Rigour Data analysis refers to the evaluation and the assessment of the data collected from the involved participants during the research study. The data collected through the use of quantitative approach has been analysed by the help of incorporating several tools that include descriptive statistics, data measurement scales and central tendency. These are duly considered to be essential tools in managing the collected data and converting the same to meaningful information, which could be easily understood by the concerned respondents. One of the methods, which have been used to evaluate the collected data, is the application of descriptive statistics. The rationale behind selecting descriptive analysis for data analysis is that it helps in summarising the data collected from the sample in an efficient manner (Rubin & Babbie, 2009). From a logical perspective, the descriptive statistics can be distributed into ‘Univariate’ and ‘Bivariate’ analysis. ‘Univariate analysis’ would permit the researcher to gain explanation of a specific variable along with its central tendency within a given time. One of the techniques under univariate approach is frequency distribution, which helps in grouping all the values into a single variable. Frequency distribution is helpful for allocating the individuals based on their age, sex, education level and marital status among others. All the values can be shown based on a single variable. These values can be categorised into frequencies and ranges representing in histograms and bar charts respectively. Additionally, data collected from the individuals can be managed by categorising their personal data based on income and age of the respondents using percentages (Healey, 2015). The next tool used for analysing the quantitative data is the ‘Measures of Central Tendency’ including the calculations of ‘mean’, ‘median’ and ‘mode’ (Herbst & Coldwell, 2004). The tool of central tendency mainly aims at analysing the collected data through the estimation of the values. Identifiably, one of the renowned techniques of data analysis through central tendency is the ‘Mean’. It is calculated through the addition of all the values and dividing the same by the total figure of values. ‘Median’ is another vital determinant of central tendency, which aims to analyse the gathered data by finding out the variable, which lies at the centre amongst others. It is generally calculated by listing together all the values and locating the middle value, which serves as the actual data. ‘Mode’ is the third variable used to compute the central tendency. It helps in analysing the collected data efficiently by determining the value having highest occurrences (Herbst & Coldwell, 2004). Data analysis in a quantitative research study also gets conducted with the help of ‘scales of measure’. The scales help in categorising the alternate variables and widely used to analyse the collected data from the respondents. Generally, there are four measurement scales namely ‘Ordinal’, ‘Nominal’, ‘Ratio’ and ‘Interval’ (Kozak, Staudhammer & Watts, 2008). The research study utilised these scales for analysing the data collected via questionnaire and quantitative data. One of the most common scales used for data analysis is the ‘nominal scale’, which aims to determine the labels of a variable. Nominal Scales usually establish solutions to such questions that do not have any significance to numerical values (Kozak et al., 2008). An ‘ordinal scale’ refers to such scale, which helps in establishing relationships amongst several variables and finding out the differences persisting amid them. Similar to the nominal scale, ordinal scale is related with non-numeric phenomena involving measurement of variables such as comfort and happiness among others. The central tendency, in case of ordinal data, can be measured by the help of calculating median as well as mode. The third scale used for data analysis is the ‘interval scale’, wherein the differences amid several values along with their respective orders, is known. Time and temperature are good examples of interval scale. Furthermore, interval scale can be useful in the situation wherein the central tendency can be duly measured by all the three techniques of mean, median along with mode. The last scale of measurement is the ‘ratio scale’, which enhances the ability of the researcher to gauge the order, intervals and calculation of the ratios based upon the concept of ‘true zero’ (Kozak et al., 2008). “Chi-square”, denoted by ‘c2 test’, is a tool for verifying the similarities and disparities prevailing amid two variables within a sample. This statistical tool has been used in this research study for determining the ‘goodness of fit’ amongst the observable values that can be theoretically expressed (Diener-West, 2008). Conclusion The study paid utmost attention on gaining access to varied ethical considerations that would influence in attaining the desired research objectives. In this regard, several ethical considerations such as informed consent, confidentiality, privacy and payment of incentives have been taken into concern in this study. These ethical considerations undermined the benefits of the participants and obtained approval from the ethical boards, managers, nurses and family members. The study has utilised quantitative research technique for the purpose of data collection along with establishing standards for ensuring validity as well as the content of information. In this research, pilot study has been used to improve the dependency and the validity of the research findings. The collected data has been analysed with the help of using several techniques such as descriptive statistics in the form of considering ‘bivariate’ and ‘univariate’ analysis methods. The analysis of data also involved the use of certain measurement scales such as ‘nominal’, ‘ordinal’, ‘interval’ and ‘ratio’ scales along with chi-square test. Finally, the study used the measures of central tendency through calculation of mean, mode and median. References AcademyHealth. (2004). Ethical guidelines for managing conflicts of interest in health services research. Ethics, 1-22. Balnaves, M., & Caputi, P. (2001). Introduction to quantitative research methods: An investigative approach. United States: SAGE. Blessing, L. T. M., & Chakrabarti, A. (2009). DRM, a design research methodology. United States: Springer Science & Business Media. Diener, M. (2008). Use of the chi-square statistic. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 1-42. Grant, R .W. & Sugarman, J. (2004). Ethics in human subjects research: do incentives matter? Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 29(6), 717–738. Groth, S. W. (2010). Honorarium or coercion: use of incentives for participants in Clinical research. J N Y State Nurses Assoc, 41(1), 11–22. Hassan, Z. A., Schattner, P., & Mazza, D. (2006). Doing a pilot study: why is it essential? Malaysian Family Physician, 1(2,3), 70-73. Healey, J. (2015). The essentials of statistics: A tool for social research. United States: Cengage Learning. Herbst, F., & Coldwell, D. (2004). Business research. United States: Juta and Company Ltd. ICMR. (2006). Ethical guidelines for biomedical research on human participants. Statement of General Principles in Biomedical Research Involving Human Participants, 1-111. Kapp, M. B. (2006). Ethical and legal issues in research involving human subjects: do you want a piece of me? J Clin Pathol. 59(4), 335–339. Kozak, R.A., Staudhammer, C.L., & Watts, S.B. (2008). Introductory probability and statistics. CABI. Lo, B., & Field, M. J. (2009). Conflict of interest in medical research, education and practice. The National Academies Press, 1-414. NIH. (n.d.). What is depression? Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression/index.shtml?ct=39994 Rubin, A. & Babbie, E. (2009). Essential research methods for social work. United States: Cengage Learning. Staplin, L. (2011). Pilot study to test multiple medication usage and driving functioning. United States: DIANE Publishing. USC. (2013). Office for the protection of research subjects (OPRS). Informed Consent in Human Subjects Research, 1-22. Wood, M., & Kerr, J. C. (2010). Basic steps in planning nursing research: From question to proposal. United States: Jones & Bartlett Learning. World Health Organization. (2001). World medical association declaration of Helsinki. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 79(4), 373-374. World Health Organization. (2013). Interpreting existing guidance. Ethical Issues in Patient Safety Research, 1-40. Appendix 1. Letter to Gate Keeper To, The Manager (hospital name) Address Address2 Date Dear Sir/Madam, This is to bring to your kind notice that a research study on older people suffering from depression is to be conducted for partial fulfilment of a degree. Hence, I am lettering to you and the patients associated with the stress, in a definite age group, to observe if they are interested about the research. The research study is to analyze the side effects of the anti-depressants upon the older people. I would like you to read my research objectives and I have adjoined my approval from the university. I assure that there will be voluntary participation for the people and they can leave anytime as per their wish. Please feel free to contact me anytime, if you have any query about the study or so. I assure you that the study will be done keeping in mind the ethical standards and hence, people choices would be given the first preference. Please update me with your decision. I would be eager for your response. Thank You for sparing your valuable time. Yours sincerely, (Researcher Name) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Name ____________________________________________ Telephone _____________________ Please return to (Researcher Name), University ABC, in the stamped and addressed envelope. 2. Inform Consent Form (Source: USC, 2013) 3. Information Sheet (Source: USC, 2013) 4. Reply Slip Reply Slip for Confirmation of Participation Dear Researcher, This to inform you that, as per the stated standards and the fulfilment of requirements, I decided that you will be allowed to conduct the research study for the completion of your course. I agree to your request for participation of the patients and others, who will give you the fullest possible information and support for completion of your work. As per the convenience of the patients and the other staffs, you may conduct the interview between 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon. I hope this decision will be beneficial for your research and our hospital as well. Name of the Manager Address Contact No. Questionnaire for Non- participating Nurses (Closed-Ended) Question 1. On a daily basis, how many patients you have to deal with who are suffering with depression? Below 5-10 10-25 30-50 50 & Above Question 2. Are all the patients suffering from depressive states belong to similar age group? Yes No Maybe May Not be Question 3. Do you have to provide medicines to the patients on a regular basis? Yes No Question 4. Do you think that your job is beneficial for the patients? Yes No Certainly Not Sure Question 5. Do you provide some additional medicines or physical exercise to the patients? Yes No Regularly Occasionally Question 6. Do you observe some side effects of the medicines affecting the patients’ health? Yes No Regularly Occasionally Question 7. Do the patients take much time to recover from such depressive situations? Yes No Question 8. Do you think that patients must be provided some other benefits to reduce their stress levels? Certainly Yes No Certainly not Question 9. Are the patients treated well by others including surgeons? Every time Yes No Occasionally Question 10. Do you think that the hospital needs to reconsider the treatment patterns? Yes No Maybe May Not be Read More