The Multidimensional Nature of Research Ethics: Letters Issued by a French Research Ethics Committee Included Similar Proportions of Ethical and Scientific Queries
Language
EN
Article de revue
This item was published in
Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics. 2022-07, vol. 17, n° 3, p. 242-253
English Abstract
Debate is ongoing concerning the activities and functioning of Research Ethics Committees (REC), especially a possible science-or-ethics dichotomy in research ethics review. We retrospectively analyzed 145 letters issued ...Read more >
Debate is ongoing concerning the activities and functioning of Research Ethics Committees (REC), especially a possible science-or-ethics dichotomy in research ethics review. We retrospectively analyzed 145 letters issued by a French REC over 18 months. All queries were classified in three levels: qualification (definition of the problem), category (aggregation of broader topics) and finally fields (ethical, scientific, or administrative). Overall, 971 queries were identified, of which 407 (42%), 379 (39%), and 135 (14%) were deemed ethical, scientific, and administrative queries, respectively. The most frequent concern was about participants' information. The main influencing factor was the profession of the reporting readers-scientific queries were more frequently raised by a methodologist, whereas ethical queries were more frequently raised by an ethicist. These results indicate that research ethics review is a multidimensional task that should be considered a collaborative effort.Read less <
English Keywords
Research ethics
Research ethics committee
IRB performance/quality/assessment/evaluation
Bioethics
Ethics education