how to respond to this discussion post

"Suppose a team of researchers used an experimental design to test the effectiveness of aromatherapy massage on pain relief and quality of life in cancer patients receiving palliative care. Some study participants will receive the special intervention and others will not."

The exposure to different treatments when study participants are seriously ill or dying is not acceptable and should be considered a violation of ethics. Firstly, the study participants in this research is what is described as vulnerable groups. According to Polit & Beck (2021), "vulnerable populations may be incapable of giving fully informed consent or may be at high risk of unintended side effects". Severely ill individuals are often in vulnerable positions due to their health condition. They may be more easily coerced or manipulated into participating in research against their best interests. Exploiting vulnerable populations is ethically unacceptable. Research studies may involve experimental treatments, interventions, or procedures that could potentially harm participants. The risk-benefit ratio must be carefully considered in any research study, and involving severely ill individuals may increase the risk without a proportional benefit. Using severely ill people as research participants may raise issues of fairness and equality. It might disproportionately burden already disadvantaged individuals, further marginalizing them in society. Severely ill individuals may not represent the general population, and their inclusion in research could skew the data and limit the applicability of study findings to the broader population (Dahlberg et al., 2020). To address these ethical concerns, researchers often work with ethics committees or institutional review boards (IRBs) to evaluate the ethical aspects of their research proposals. These committees help ensure that research is conducted in an ethical manner, with a focus on participant protection, informed consent, and potential benefits to society. In some cases, alternative approaches, such as using animal models or less vulnerable human populations, may be considered to gather valuable data without compromising ethics.

References

Dahlberg, J., Eriksen, C., Robertsen, A., & Beitland, S. (2020). Barriers and challenges in the process of including critically ill patients in clinical studies.Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine,28(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-020-00732-x

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2021).Essentials of Nursing Research. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.