Despite the importance and acceptance of research ethics consultation as an entity in many medical research areas, little is known about its status in nursing research. Focusing on inquiries from nurse researchers, we retrospectively analyzed records of integrated clinical research consultation, provided by members of the Clinical Research Center independently of the research ethics committee, at a Japanese university hospital during 2018-2019. Among various consultations in nursing studies (n = 101), 43 were related to research ethics. The main issues in research ethics consultation were compatibility with guidelines (n = 28; 65%) and application of ethics review (n = 12; 28%). Future studies should investigate international settings and address the relevance of research ethics consultation to promote proper nursing studies.
Big data trends in health research challenge the oversight mechanism of the Research Ethics Committees (RECs). The traditional standards of research quality and the mandate of RECs illuminate deficits in facing the computational complexity, methodological novelty, and limited auditability of these approaches. To better understand the challenges facing RECs, we explored the perspectives and attitudes of the members of the seven Swiss Cantonal RECs via semi-structured qualitative interviews. Our interviews reveal limited experience among REC members with the review of big data research, insufficient expertise in data science, and uncertainty about how to mitigate big data research risks. Nonetheless, RECs could strengthen their oversight by training in data science and big data ethics, complementing their role with external experts and ad hoc boards, and introducing precise shared practices.
The ethics of returning nonactionable genetic research results to individuals are unclear. Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) genetic variants are nonactionable, predominantly found in people of West African ancestry, and contribute to kidney disease disparities. To inform ethical research practice, we interviewed researchers, clinicians, and African American community members (n = 76) about the potential risks and benefits of returning APOL1 research results. Stakeholders strongly supported returning APOL1 results. Benefits include reciprocity for participants, community education and rebuilding trust in research, and expectation of future actionability. Risks include analytic validity, misunderstanding, psychological burdens, stigma and discrimination, and questionable resource tradeoffs.
Conclusions:APOL1 results should be offered to participants. Responsibly fulfilling this offer requires careful identification of best communication practices, broader education about the topic, and ongoing community engagement.
An evidence-based approach to research ethics is critical to ethical research but little is known about how trauma survivors-especially those from vulnerable populations-respond to laboratory-based trauma research. One hundred four incarcerated women (N = 64 rape survivors) reported their traumatic life experiences, listened to and responded to an audio recording of a dating interaction that culminates in a completed rape, and then reported their responses to their participation. Compared to the control group (N = 40), rape survivors (N = 64) had more posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and these symptoms were associated with more emotional responding. Both groups showed a positive benefit-cost ratio with regard to their participation did not differ on their overall reactions to research participation. These findings suggest that laboratory-based trauma research methods are associated with consistently positive experiences, which can help inform researchers and institutional review boards about the risks and benefits of such research.