Research involving humans is governed by a number of guidelines. These ensure that both participants and researchers are protected by compliance with international, national and local requirements. A research protocol describes how the research complies with these standards.

Regulatory involvement in human research has resulted from various historical research events. Some of these issues are highlighted in the University of Nevada’s History of Research Ethics. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) provides an overview of the History of ethics and the ethical review of human research in Australia.

Ethics approval is normally required from the organisations that are responsible for the participants in a study. Applications for ethics approval usually include a well developed research protocol outlining methodology, participant issues, data collection, analysis and any ethical considerations. It is important to allow sufficient time when planning research in palliative care to prepare for, and receive, ethics approval. The processes of ethics approval may take some time especially in multi-site research, where each site may have its own procedures.

Ethics Review Boards and Hospital Research Ethics Committees can sometimes be very cautious when reviewing ethics applications for studies using palliative populations. The following points can help in seeking ethics approval:

The Centre for Health Services Development has produced a document Ethical research in palliative care which may help in developing an ethics proposal.

 

This page was created on 25 March 2008 and is due for review in March 2010
Last updated 26 May 2008