Assignment Task:
Lecture Notes on Ethics Considerations and Data Integrity in Nursing Research
The course "Applied Biostatistics and Epidemiology" requires students to apply what they have learned to evidence-based practice. The course covers the essential concepts and skills required for reading, communicating, interpreting, and applying statistical methods in healthcare. Various methods are reviewed with an emphasis on statistical application for the critical assessment of data. The use of statistics and the associated values of meaning and significance for appropriate and informed decision-making is a major underpinning of the course.
These lecture notes on ethical concerns and data integrity in nursing research are relevant to all inferential statistics and hypothesis testing discussed in the course and outlined in the textbook. Knowledge gained from this reference will enable students to properly consider ethical implications in any data-driven initiative within an evidence-based practice (EBP) environment. Students are provided with several citations to access and review to maximize the benefit from these lecture notes. The course textbooks do not address the topic of ethics. Therefore, these faculty notes and other resources contained in week 7 are important for an advanced nurse practitioner to assimilate with respective statistical and research knowledge.
The undertaking of research, data analysis, and reporting is supposed to be objective and rigorous with the aim of contributing high-quality knowledge to the scientific field. However, the research process can be fraught with statistical and ethical issues due to outside influence and researcher misconduct. Research should be guided by an ethical commitment to protect the rights of human subjects, including respect for human dignity, informed and voluntary consent to participate and withdraw, beneficence or "doing good", non-maleficence or "doing no evil", justice, confidentiality, and anonymity. After reviewing these lecture notes and other resources in week 7, students should be able to respond to the questions in the discussion board.
Ethics in Nursing Practice
Patient advocacy is integral to nursing practice, where advocacy can be related to patients' clinical management or potential research participation through informed consent. As West's article advanced, the ethical issues most cited in conducting nursing research deal with issues related to informed consent, confidentiality, patient privacy, and beneficence. These are very broad ethical issues that are really processes. See the provided reference.
For instance, the process of informed consent involves consideration of ethical principles such as autonomy (supporting the patient's right to independent decision making),fidelity (loyalty, fairness, truthfulness, advocacy, and dedication to patients served) and justice (equal chance to be included in a study through random sampling and fair distribution of resources), non-maleficence (avoiding harm), and beneficence (desire to do good to help others or ponder a cost versus benefit determination). See the American Nurses Association (n.d.) ethical definitions' reference for more information.
American Statistical Association's Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice
The American Statistical Association (ASA) has written guidelines for statistical practice and practitioners (2018). These guidelines aim to promote an ethical and consistent framework for conducting research and making statistical decision-making. The following principles were identified to emphasize the broad scope of accountability for the readers of this work and to serve as a model for the future. See the reference list.
- Professional Integrity and Accountability
- Integrity of Data and Methods
- Responsibilities to Stakeholders
- Responsibilities to Research Subjects, Data Subjects, or Those Directly Affected by Statistical Practices
- Responsibilities to Members of Multidisciplinary Teams
- Responsibilities to Fellow Statistical Practitioners and the Profession
- Responsibilities of Leaders, Supervisors, and Mentors in Statistical Practice
- Responsibilities Regarding Potential Misconduct
Human Subjects Research Advanced Training
Researchers must undergo specific training in research conduct for a hospital to conduct human subjects research and obtain approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Quality-driven initiatives may also require advanced research training for individuals seeking clinical and other organizational data for specific purposes. Certificates for research training are offered by various organizations, but one trusted standard for research, ethics, and compliance training is The CITI Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program). The training track for human subjects research is the CITI Program "Social & Behavioral Research - Basic/Refresher" course, but other advanced courses are also offered. The CITI Program has partnerships with universities to offer research and ethics training courses for faculty and students. Successful completion of the online course is approved for a three year period with requirement for renewal. Here is a link to CITI Program home page for overview of their course catalog. A list of the modules in the Social and Behavioral
Research certificate course follows for your consideration. Check out the website.
- Belmont Report and its Principles
- Students involved in Research
- Historical and Ethical Principles
- Definition of Research and Human Subjects
- Federal Regulations
- Evaluation of Research
- Importance of Informed Consent
- Ensuring Privacy and Confidentiality
- Research Involving Prisoners
- Research Involving Children
- Research Conducted in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools
- International Research
- Internet-Based (Survey) Research
- Research and HIPAA Privacy Protection
- Vulnerable Subjects - Research Involving Workers and Employees
Another resource for human subject's research protection certificates of training is the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Human Research Protection.
Institutional Review Board Resources
Students have previously shared links to Institutional Review Board (IRB) sites within their respective Intranet resource. Several healthcare institutions' IRB links and additional resources related to scientific inquiry and rigor in research conduct follow.
- IRB approval process for Aurora Health Care
- IRB approval process for Rush University
- IRB approval process for Advocate Health Care (Christ, Illinois Masonic, etc.)
- UChicago Medicine Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice Council
- Lewis University IRB
- Chicago Public School Research
- Chicago Public Schools Policy Manual on External Research Study and Data Policy
- Loyola University Chicago's Health Sciences Campus Institutional Review Board
- An introduction to scientific rigor(n.d.).
- Promoting awareness and knowledge to enhance scientific rigor in neuroscience (n.d.).
- Research misconduct (n.d.). Georgia Tech.
- Rigor and reproducibility (n.d.).National Institute of Health.
Defining and Measuring Disparities, Inequities, and Inequalities in the Healthy People initiative
I am always struck by the terminology that researchers use in their presentation of a study; e.g Disparity, inequality, inequity, and burden are often used as synonyms, which they are not. There is both objectivity and subjectivity in authors' choices for nomenclature and as tone setters. I found a short slide presentation on this very topic of authors' terminology by Klein and Huang (n.d.), titled "Defining and measuring disparities, inequities, and inequalities in the Healthy People initiative", from the National Center for Health Statistics Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Healthy People National initiatives. Take a lookfor your own awareness and mindfulness of the power of words to be accurately applied and interpreted in research. Think about the ethical implications in the choice of words that can represent truthful reporting or reporting intended to misrepresent results for alternative motives. So interesting and important to contemplate.
Evaluations, Assessment, and Tests for Research and Quality Projects
The cornerstone of the Buros Center's publishing activities is the Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) series. MMY is the most widely acclaimed reference series in education and psychology, designed to assist professionals in selecting and using standardized tests. The series, initiated in 1938, provides factual information and critical reviews on the construction, use, and validity of commercially available tests published in English. Test Reviews Online, a subsidiary of Buro's Center's, includes descriptive information on more than 3,500 commercially available tests, and more than 2,800 of them have reviews available for purchase.
The tests evaluated include validity and reliability evidence by the Test Reviews Online staff.
Here is a list of some tests under the Buro's category "Behavioral Assessment", which can be purchased for use by researchers and for quality improvement initiatives, where permission must be granted to use with patients or other human subjects.
Ethics in Action - Applications for Organizational Mission, Vision, and Values
Students were encouraged at the beginning of these lecture notes to review their respective workplace and university intranet and internet's mission, vision, and values (MVV). Students were asked to reflect on the ethical terms present in those key principles and commitments. Read the Lewis University College of Nursing and Health Sciences MVV statements. Consider everything in this document and then compare your own MVV and ponder how you professionally support those commitments.
The College of Nursing and Health Sciences and this course subscribe to the values of the Lewis University Mission including: Knowledge, Justice, Association, Wisdom and Fidelity. These values are consistent with the professional values expressed in the American Nurses Association Standards of Practice and the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics and are modeled by faculty in their professional nursing practice. The College of Nursing and Health Sciences supports the University's commitment to maintaining our campus as a Sanctified Zone, which celebrates its diverse community.
Lewis University Mission Statement
Lewis University, guided by its Catholic and Lasallian heritage, provides a diverse student population with programs for a liberal and professional education grounded in the interaction of knowledge and fidelity in the search for truth.
Lewis promotes the development of the complete person through the pursuit of wisdom and justice. Fundamental to its mission is a spirit of association, which fosters community in all teaching, learning, and service.
Lewis University, guided by its Catholic and Lasallian heritage, provides a diverse student population with programs for a liberal and professional education grounded in the interaction of knowledge and fidelity in the search for truth. Lewis promotes the development of the complete person through the pursuit of wisdom and justice. Fundamental to its mission is a spirit of association that fosters community in all teaching, learning, and service.
These distinctive values guide the University in fulfilling its mission:
Knowledge: The result of a lifelong pursuit of learning fostered through creative and critical interaction in a community of learners.
Fidelity: The spirit that recognizes God as the ultimate reality, unifying the diverse forms of knowledge in the pursuit of the fullness of truth, while recognizing the diversity of human experience.
Wisdom: The result of the integration of reflection and action developed through higher learning throughout all of life.
Justice: The affirmation of the equal dignity of every person and the promotion of personal and social responsibility.
Association: The process of forming a community of mutual respect, collegiality, collaboration, and service.
References:
- American Nurses Association. (n.d.). Short definitions of ethical principles and theories and familiar words, what do they mean?
- American Statistical Association. (2018). ASA ethical guidelines for statistical practice.
- Kim, M., Mallory, C., & Valerio, T. (2022). Statistics for evidence-based practice in nursing (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
- West, E. (2019). Ethics and integrity in nursing research. In R. Iphofen (Ed). Handbook of Research Ethicsethics. Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.
- Faculty: Kathleen Ruroede, PhD, MEd, RN
- Adjunct Professor | Graduate Department of Nursing
- Lewis University | College of Nursing and Health Sciences