Ethical considerations in planning and conducting research on human subjects.

The ethical conduct of research on humans requires more than a caring researcher and a legalistic adherence to federal regulations. It requires good planning and managing of issues accruing from the research relationship--communication, risk and perception of risk, and benefits--to all who have a stake in the relationship and outcome. In 1978 the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research identified ethical principles that should govern research on humans. Institutional review boards (IRBs) now exist in every organization that receives federal funding for human-subjects research. Researchers have an obligation to study the requirements of their IRB when they plan their research. Further, they must establish appropriate procedures for obtaining informed consent and assessing risk, risk perception, and ways to increase the benefits of research.

Will the new code help researchers to be more ethical?

A code of ethics has 2 largely incompatible objectives: to set forth enforceable minimal standards of conduct and to teach about or invoke ethical conduct. The section of the new American Psychological Association code dealing with research ethics achieves the former to some degree. However, it neither provides needed education in the ethics of research nor states where the reader might turn for such information. The code is particularly deficient in the following areas: privacy and confidentiality; institutional review boards; deception; debriefing; data sharing; and research on marginal populations, on children and adolescents, and in organizational contexts. Suggestions are offered for providing a bibliographic resource, in hard copy and on-line, that would stimulate independent interest, scholarship, education, and research on research ethics.