Ethical and Cultural Considerations in Counseling Research for Master's Students

If disclosure of a subject's involvement in a specific research study can be potentially harmful to the subject, and the consent form is the only record linking the subject to the research, which of the following would be most helpful:

Obtain a Certificate of Confidentiality

Additional safeguards that may be included in a social and behavioral study may include?

Remove all direct identifiers from the data as soon as possible.

NIH has set forth guidelines on the inclusion of women and members of minority groups and their subpopulations in biomedical and behavioral human subject research. This inclusion is to ensure that:

Researchers do studies on women and minorities.

A study was submitted to the IRB designed to evaluate the effect of background noise on an individual's ability to concentrate and answer questions. The IRB approved the study and consent form. The consent form includes all the required information. The use of a consent form is an example of the Belmont principle of:

Respect the Person

What statement about risks in social and behavioral sciences research is most accurate?

Risks are specific to time, situation, and culture.

A general requirement for informed consent is that no informed consent may include any exculpatory language. Exculpatory language is that which waives or appears to waive any of the subject's legal rights or releases or appears to release those conducting the research from liability for negligence. Which of the following statements in a consent form is an example of exculpatory language?

Taking part in the research is voluntary, but if you choose to take part, you waive the right to legal redress for any research-related injuries.

Cultural competence in research is defined as the ability of researchers to provide high quality research that takes into account:

The diversity of population's values, beliefs and behaviors when developing research ideas, conducting research and exploring applicability of their findings.

When IRBs are applying the federal regulatory criteria for approval to protocols involving socially or economically disadvantaged persons:

The final criterion concerning vulnerable populations applies exclusively to these protocols

A waiver of the requirement for documentation of informed consent may be granted when:

The only record linking the subject and the research is the consent document and the principal risk is a breach of confidentiality.

A criterion for waiving informed consent is that, when appropriate, subjects are provided additional pertinent information after the study. In which of the following studies would it NOT be appropriate to provide subjects with information about missing elements of consent:

A study involving decision-making games in which subjects were led to believe that they were interacting with another student in another room, but were actually interacting with a computer programmed to provide consistent responses to all subjects.

According to the Belmont Report, the requirement that the benefits and burdens of the research are equitably distributed, expresses the principle of:

Beneficence

An example cited in the Belmont Report (The National Commission 1979) stated that "During the 19th and early 20th centuries the burdens of serving as research subjects fell largely upon poor ward patients, while the benefits of improved medical care flowed primarily to private patients." This is an example of a violation of which Belmont principle?

Justice

A therapist at a free university clinic treats elementary school children with behavior problems who are referred by a social service agency. She is also a doctoral candidate who proposes using data she has and will collect about the children for a case-based research project. Which of the following statements about parental permission is correct?

The parents of the children might feel pressure to give permission to the therapist to use their children's data so that she will continue to provide services to their children.

Which of the following is an example of how the principle of beneficence is applied to a study involving human subjects?

Ensuring that subjects understand that participation is voluntary

A researcher wishes to study generational differences in coping mechanisms among adults who experienced abuse as children. Adequate measures will be instituted to obtain informed consent and ensure that there is no breach of confidentiality. The most likely additional risk is that some subjects may:

Feel that their privacy has been invaded.

The primary purpose of a Certificate of Confidentiality is to:

Protect identifiable research information from compelled disclosure.

In 1979, the National Commission for the Protection of Humans Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research developed ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects for research. The purpose of these guidelines was to:

Provide a framework for use in the resolution of ethical problems arising from research involving human subjects.

As part of the consent process, the federal regulations require researchers to:

Provide a list of the IRB members who reviewed the protocol.

The researcher's failure to protect research subjects from deductive disclosure of identity (that is, the re-identification of subjects by other researchers) is the primary ethical violation in which of the following studies?

"Tastes, Ties, and Time (T3)" study

Overcoming challenges to cultural competence in research requires that:

IRB membership should include representatives of large communities and cultural groups as representatives. Early-phase study design should take into account race, ethnicity and cultural factors. Investigators examine and understand historical contexts for study populations before initiating research study design.

Trust and transparency are critical to successful and culturally competent research. In the research setting, establishing trust in diverse communities does NOT require:

Promoting feelings of ownership within the community