Ethics and Compliance - Assignment Example

Research Ethics and Compliance (IRB) The office of IRB promotes scholarly and ethical conduct of the highest level in scales of research involving people participation. In research, IRB materials are very helpful because they facilitate the process of review, through support and guidance to researchers in the preparation, as well as proposal submission. They also help in the development and implementation of policies and procedures, (Ritchie, & Shopes, 2003), which ensures that researchers comply with international, national and provincial guidelines.

Furthermore, they promote education and an ongoing training for IRB members and researchers.The IRB guidelines are particularly useful because it minimizes the risks of subjects that concerns human research, and ensures that subject selection is equitable (Ritchie, & Shopes, 2003). Moreover, IRB makes subject risks reasonable in relation to expected benefits to subject and knowledge importance, which may be the reasonably expected result. It is flexible and focuses on reducing harm, limiting limitations of bureaucracy of valid research limitations and also maximizes informed consent.

IRB also ensures that clinical trials are not harmful to those undertaking the research. Additionally, Ritchie, & Shopes, (2003) explain that it assesses that research ethics and methods so as to promote well informed voluntary participation by subjects that are prospective and maximize safety for the entire research. The challenges facing IRB in conducting research are; the written guidelines mainly focus on medical research because the Belmont principles and federal regulations were formulated with social behavioral and biomedical research in mind.

Furthermore, there is a weak fit between IRB requirements and federal regulations in their relationship with social science research (Ritchie & Shopes, 2003). There are complains concerning IRB legitimacy, applicability, pertaining social science and participant’s consent documentation requirement. Social scientists also say that it fails to understand their methods. These concerns are mainly based on the fact that IRB fails to well understand researches that are not related to biomedicine.

ReferencesRitchie, D. & Shopes, L. (2003). IRB Review: Application of the Department of Health and Human Services Regulations for the Protection of Human Subjects. http://web.archive.org/web/20080117043701/http://alpha.dickinson.edu/oha/org_irb.html. Retrieved 5th August, 2011.