Question:
This assignment tests your understanding and ability to identify and reflect upon some of the key issues relating to health research practice. A number of the issues explored have been covered in the first half of this module; however, some issues will require further reading and discovery of your own.
In answering the following questions you should refer to academic discussion of the issues and demonstration of your wider reading by referencing your sources using Harvard conventions where appropriate. A guideline word count is offered for each question, though this is a guideline only and I would encourage you to consider carefully the quality of the words included rather than the quantity.
You should answer all questions
Questions
1) Discuss the concept of informed consent in health research with reference to international and national policies, guidelines in your respective country. (500 words)
2) Discuss the concept of patient and public involvement and it’s relevance to health research. (500 words)
3) Choose a research article available to you in full. Critically appraise the article using the relevant CASP checklist. You should attach the journal article to your assignment as an appendix and identify which CASP toolkit you have used to inform your critical appraisal. (Bear in mind that you should choose an article for which a CASP checklist exists) (500words)
4) Within a health topic of your choice, critically appraise the use of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research. You should consider the advantages and disadvantages of each research approach within the health topic you have chosen including potential ethical, practical or legal barriers to their use. (1000 words)
Solution:
Question 1: Concept of Informed Consent in Health Research
Adopting the definition of Kaye et al. (2015) an informed consent is a process that presupposes agreeing to contribute in a study on basis of accessing all the reliable and patently digestible information in terms of participation. In particular, this involves a consideration on the prevailing harms and benefits of carrying out such a research. In light of this, a freely provided informed consent is fundamental to research encompassing human participants. According to Drazen et al. (2013), it is critical for research participants to have a precise understanding of the exact proponents of research hence agree to participate in it without coercion or forceful intentions. These include participant’s rights, study purpose, procedures to be followed, potential risks and participation gains. This applies irrespective of whether they are patients or healthy volunteer’s participants. In an event where the potential participants are incapacitated on understanding the tenets of the research information to make a plausible decision, a major precaution ought to be adopted in obtaining a meaningful informed consent.
In the international and national contexts, informed consent is stipulated in policies that must abound all health researchers. The contemporary international policies on research consent are inspired by the Nuremberg Doctors Trial after the World War 2 on human experimentation. In this regard, in 1947, the first international policy Nuremberg policy was issued involving human subjects/participants (Grady, 2015). In addition, the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki was ratified in 1964 and subsequently reviewed in 1996 reiterating on the need for voluntary and informed consent in health research (Green & Thorogood, 2013). Nevertheless, the most predominant International Policy on informed consent in health research was published by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) in 1982. They published the Proposed International Guidelines for Biomedical Research incorporating Human Participants. This policy comprised of responses to questions regarding specific circumstances on the scientific research implementation in developing countries. These policies stipulate that the informed consent ought to be based on the individual autonomy, a written explanation of proposed studies and participants experiences with the Western medicine.
In UAE, the Health Authority- Abu Dhabi (HAAD) is tasked with the
roles of regulating all the proponents of Human Subjects/Participants Research.
The UAE policy on health research stipulates the ethical framework that offers
all the demands for a research for it to be subsequently approved by the
Research Ethics Committee (REC) (Steinsbekk et al., 2013). Other policies in UAE that compliments the
HAAD policies include the Licensing Requirements for Institutional Human
Subjects Research and the Abu Dhabi Health Research Council. All these policies
are relevance and fit to all people and institutions planning or actively
involved in health research in UAE. The health care professionals, medical
students, interns and trainees abiding to the set policies can carry out a
research involving human participants to offer preventive, curative, promotional
and rehabilitative health care practices research. In collaboration with the
aforementioned policies, the researchers are supposed to abide with the
stipulation of participants confidentiality and disclosure of confidential
information.
Question 2: Concept of Patient and Public Involvement and relevancy to Health Research Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research diagnose an active partnership existing between a patient and/or the members of general public and researchers. According to Brett et al. (2014) PPI is discrete from participation in research as it identifies the patient and public actively included to contribute to the research process either playing the role of advisers or co-researchers. The rationale for this involvement is………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Please contact us to receive this assessment in full based on your level of expectations
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