Abstract
Nursing is underpinned by a commitment to evidence-based practice. Practitioners are expected to have the competence to understand scientific research that is underpinning nursing practice. Increasingly, nurses at all levels of training are involved in conducting nursing research. Research ethics is dedicated to reflecting on ethical concerns that arise in the practice of research. In this chapter, research ethical concerns will be discussed through the lens of core concepts from feminist ethics: power, vulnerability, agency, care and trust. This chapter describes research ethical requirements as situated in specific social and institutional contexts that are characterised by power relationships. It is proposed to understand research as relational where the researcher’s ability to engage in research activities that respect the participant’s agency, their establishment of caring research relationships and their trustworthiness are proposed as underpinnings for traditional research ethical requirements.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ackerly, Brooke, and Jacqui True. 2008. Reflexivity in practice: Power and ethics in feminist research on international relations. International Studies Review 10 (4): 693–707.
Alderson, Priscilla, and Virginia Morrow. 2006. Multidisciplinary research ethics review: Is it feasible? International Journal of Social Research Methodology 9 (5): 405–417.
Appelbaum, Paul S., Charles W. Lidz, and Thomas Grisso. 2004. Therapeutic misconception in clinical research: Frequency and risk factors. IRB: Ethics & Human Research 26 (2): 1–8.
Ashcraft, Karen Lee. 2001. Organized dissonance: Feminist bureaucracy as hybrid form. Academy of Management Journal 44 (6): 1301–1322.
Attwell, Katie, Julie Leask, Samantha B. Meyer, Philippa Rokkas, and Paul Ward. 2017. Vaccine rejecting parents’ engagement with expert systems that inform vaccination programs. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 14 (1): 65–76.
Baier, Annette. 1986. Trust and antitrust. Ethics 96 (2): 231–260.
Banks, Sarah, Andrea Armstrong, Kathleen Carter, Helen Graham, Peter Hayward, Alex Henry, Tessa Holland, et al. 2013. Everyday ethics in community-based participatory research. Contemporary Social Science 8 (3): 263–277.
Baylis, Françoise, and Chris Kaposy. 2010. Wanted: Inclusive guidelines for research involving pregnant women. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada 32 (5): 473–476.
Beauchamp, Tom, and James Childress. 2012. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Benatar, Solomon R. 2002. Reflections and recommendations on research ethics in developing countries. Social Science & Medicine 54 (7): 1131–1141.
Birt, Linda, Suzanne Scott, Debbie Cavers, Christine Campbell, and Fiona Walter. 2016. Member checking: A tool to enhance trustworthiness or merely a nod to validation? Qualitative Health Research 26 (13): 1802–1811.
Bonner, Ann, and Gerda Tolhurst. 2002. Insider-outsider perspectives of participant observation. Nurse Researcher 9 (4): 7–19.
Boser, Susan. 2007. Power, ethics, and the IRB: Dissonance over human participant review of participatory research. Qualitative Inquiry 13 (8): 1060–1074.
Bosk, Charles L. 2007. The new bureaucracies of virtue or when form fails to follow function. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 30 (2): 192–209.
Carr, Caleb T. 2015. Spotlight on ethics: institutional review boards as systemic bullies. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 37 (1): 14–29.
Carter, Bernie. 2009. Tick box for child? The ethical positioning of children as vulnerable, researchers as barbarians and reviewers as overly cautious. International Journal of Nursing Studies 46 (6): 858–864.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). (2008). https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-2.html.
Council for International Organisations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS). 2016. International ethical guidelines for health-related research involving humans. https://cioms.ch/publications/product/international-ethical-guidelines-for-health-related-research-involving-humans/.
Dewing, Jan. 2007. Participatory research: A method for process consent with persons who have dementia. Dementia 6 (1): 11–25.
Dingwall, Robert. 2008. The ethical case against ethical regulation in humanities and social science research. Twenty-First Century Society 3 (1): 1–12.
Dyer, Sarah, and David Demeritt. 2009. Un-ethical review? Why it is wrong to apply the medical model of research governance to human geography. Progress in Human Geography 33 (1): 46–64.
Emanuel, Ezekiel J., David Wendler, and Christine Grady. 2000. What makes clinical research ethical? JAMA 283 (20): 2701–2711.
Ferguson, Kathy E. 1984. The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Flicker, Sarah, Robb Travers, Adrian Guta, Sean McDonald, and Aileen Meagher. 2007. Ethical dilemmas in community-based participatory research: Recommendations for institutional review boards. Journal of Urban Health 84 (4): 478–493.
Gaylord, Nan, and Pamela Grace. 1995. Nursing advocacy: An ethic of practice. Nursing Ethics 2 (1): 11–18.
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Groot, Barbara C., M. Vink, A. Haveman, M. Huberts, G. Schout, and Tineke A. Abma. 2019. Ethics of care in participatory health research: Mutual responsibility in collaboration with co-researchers. Educational Action Research 27 (2): 286–302.
Haggerty, Kevin D. 2004. Ethics creep: Governing social science research in the name of ethics. Qualitative Sociology 27 (4): 391–414.
Hanks, Robert G. 2008. The lived experience of nursing advocacy. Nursing Ethics 15 (4): 468–477.
Hawkins, Jennifer S., and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, eds. 2008. Exploitation and Developing Countries: The Ethics of Clinical Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Henderson, Saras. 2003. Power imbalance between nurses and patients: A potential inhibitor of partnership in care. Journal of Clinical Nursing 12 (4): 501–508.
Horng, Sam, and Christine Grady. 2003. Misunderstanding in clinical research: Distinguishing therapeutic misconception, therapeutic misestimation, & therapeutic optimism. IRB: Ethics & Human Research 25 (1): 11–16.
Hurst, Samia A. 2008. Vulnerability in research and health care; describing the elephant in the room? Bioethics 22 (4): 191–202.
Jones, Kevin Edson, Alan Irwin, Michael Farrelly, and Jack Stilgoe. 2008. Understanding Lay Membership and Scientific Governance. Liverpool: University of Liverpool. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin_Jones30/publication/337915276_Understanding_Lay_Membership_and_Scientific_Governance/links/5df2b12d92851c836478cf37/Understanding-Lay-Membership-and-Scientific-Governance.pdf.
Joseph, Pathma D., Jonathan C. Craig, Allison Tong, and Patrina H.Y. Caldwell. 2016. Researchers’, regulators’, and sponsors’ views on pediatric clinical trials: A multinational study. Pediatrics 138 (4): e20161171.
Judkins-Cohn, Tanya M., Kiersten Kielwasser-Withrow, Melissa Owen, and Jessica Ward. 2013. Ethical principles of informed consent: Exploring nurses’ dual role of care provider and researcher. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing 45 (1): 35–42.
Karnieli-Miller, Orit, Roni Strier, and Liat Pessach. 2009. Power relations in qualitative research. Qualitative Health Research 19 (2): 279–289.
Klitzman, Robert. 2011. The ethics police?: IRBs’ views concerning their power. PLoS One 6 (12): e28773.
Krugman, Saul. 1986. The Willowbrook hepatitis studies revisited: Ethical aspects. Reviews of Infectious Diseases 8 (1): 157–162.
Levine, Carol, Ruth Faden, Christine Grady, Dale Hammerschmidt, Lisa Eckenwiler, and Jeremy Sugarman. 2004. The limitations of “vulnerability” as a protection for human research participants. The American Journal of Bioethics 4 (3): 44–49.
Loftin, Collette, Hollie Campanella, and Sarah Gilbert. 2011. Ethical issues in nursing education: The dual-role researcher. Teaching and Learning in Nursing 6 (3): 139–143.
Lukes, Steven. 2005. Power: A radical view. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Luna, Florencia. 2009. Elucidating the concept of vulnerability: Layers not labels. IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2 (1): 121–139.
———. 2019. Identifying and evaluating layers of vulnerability–a way forward. Developing World Bioethics 19 (2): 86–95.
Lyerly, Anne Drapkin, Margaret Olivia Little, and Ruth Faden. 2008. The second wave: Toward responsible inclusion of pregnant women in research. IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 1 (2): 5–22.
MacDonald, Chris. 2002. Nurse autonomy as relational. Nursing Ethics 9 (2): 194–201.
MacDonald, Hannah. 2007. Relational ethics and advocacy in nursing: Literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 57 (2): 119–126.
Mackenzie, Catriona. 2008. Relational autonomy, normative authority and perfectionism. Journal of Social Philosophy 39 (4): 512–533.
Mackenzie, Catriona, and Natalie Stoljar, eds. 2000. Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Madill, Anna, and Paul Sullivan. 2018. Mirrors, portraits, and member checking: Managing difficult moments of knowledge exchange in the social sciences. Qualitative Psychology 5 (3): 321–339.
McKeown, Jane, Amanda Clarke, Christine Ingleton, and Julie Repper. 2010. Actively involving people with dementia in qualitative research. Journal of Clinical Nursing 19 (13–14): 1935–1943.
McShane, Kelly E., Caitlin J. Davey, Jennifer Rouse, Amelia M. Usher, and Shea Sullivan. 2015. Beyond ethical obligation to research dissemination: Conceptualizing debriefing as a form of knowledge transfer. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne 56 (1): 80–87.
Miller, Franklin G., John P. Gluck Jr., and David Wendler. 2008. Debriefing and accountability in deceptive research. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 18 (3): 235–251.
Naidu, Thirusha, and Neil Prose. 2018. Re-envisioning member checking and communicating results as accountability practice in qualitative research: A South African community-based organization example. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 19 (3). http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3153/4314.
Newman, Elana, Elizabeth Risch, and Nancy Kassam-Adams. 2006. Ethical issues in trauma-related research: A review. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics 1 (3): 29–46.
Noddings, Nel. 1984. Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nutt, Linda, and Linda Bell. 2002a. Divided loyalties, divided expectations: Research ethics, professional and occupational responsibilities. Tina Miller, Melanie Birch, Melanie Mauthner, and Julie Jessop (eds.). Ethics in Qualitative Research: 70–90.
———. 2002b. Divided loyalties, divided expectations: Research ethics, professional and occupational responsibilities. In Tina Miller, Melanie Birch, Melanie Mauthner & Julie Jessop (eds.). Ethics in Qualitative Research: 70–90.
O’Neill, Onora. 2002. Autonomy and trust in bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2018. Linking trust to trustworthiness. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 26 (2): 293–300.
Oshana, Marina. 2006. Personal Autonomy in Society. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Preissle, Judith. 2007. Feminist research ethics. In Handbook of Feminist Research; Theory and Praxis, ed. Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber, 515–532. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Reverby, Susan M. 2009. Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Rothman, David J. 1982. Were Tuskegee & Willowbrook’ studies in nature’? Hastings Center Report 12: 5–7.
Schrag, Zachary M. 2009. How talking became human subjects research: the federal regulation of the social sciences, 1965–1991. Journal of Policy History 21 (1): 3–37.
———. Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965–2009. JHU Press, Baltimore 2010.
———. 2011. The case against ethics review in the social sciences. Research Ethics 7 (4): 120–131.
Smith, Linda J. 2008. How ethical is ethical research? Recruiting marginalized, vulnerable groups into health services research. Journal of Advanced Nursing 62 (2): 248–257.
Solomon, Stephanie. 2016. Too many rationales, not enough reason: A call to examine the goals of including lay members on institutional review boards. Accountability in Research 23 (1): 4–22.
Szmukler, George, and Paul S. Appelbaum. 2008. Treatment pressures, leverage, coercion, and compulsion in mental health care. Journal of Mental Health 17 (3): 233–244.
The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. 1979. Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/index.html.
The Nuremberg Code. 1949. https://history.nih.gov/display/history/Niremberg+Code.
Wilson, Elena, Amanda Kenny, and Virginia Dickson-Swift. 2018. Ethical challenges of community based participatory research: Exploring researchers’ experience. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 21 (1): 7–24.
World Medical Association (WMA). 2018. Ethical Principles for Medical Research with Human Subjects. https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Felzmann, H. (2020). Feminist Ethics in Nursing Research. In: Kohlen, H., McCarthy, J. (eds) Nursing Ethics: Feminist Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49104-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49104-8_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49103-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-49104-8
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)