Is my DPP align ethically with the Belmont Report?

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Ashley Cook

Ethics Paper

Capella University

May 3, 2022

Ethical Consideration in DPP report

Background of DPP

The capstone project's focus is on enhancing Haven's ability to assist victims in developing self-sufficiency to maintain long-term housing. The project focuses on Haven's, which is a dual program to investigate the issues of violence and assault by exploring gender, family violence, and sexual assault. The study looks at the financial impediments experienced by women and their role in restricting their freedom, especially those abused by their intimate partners. Of the major reasons considered, financial instability is explained to be one of the greatest reasons why women experience limited choices after gaining their freedom. Generally, economic instability is used to bind women and their abusers. The long-term effect is that such women will need assistance maintaining a long-term shelter. Haven comes into play when it builds houses for abused women and critically assesses the problem to see how they can develop a solution or idea that can change it.

The capstone project topic is needed because issues such as financial literacy training are necessary to help the surveyors of domestic violence to gain financial independence. But the has been a deficiency in the empirical evidence on the proposed interventions. Thus the capstone project fills the gap by examining the impact of improving the financial literacy of the domestic violence victims. The project is needed further because the problem of affordable housing must be addressed urgently so that the community can have an effective and caring system for providing for the needs of homeless people. The study uses descriptive research using a survey design and will use quantitative and quantitative analysis. Further, the project provides the approach for the study in terms of sample and design, and risk assessment is described together with ethical considerations for the sample. The study deals with how I will ethically deal with the Haven staff while conducting interviews and participating/interacting with the victims while providing financial literacy training.

Research Ethics

The application of fundamental ethical principles to research activities, such as the design and implementation of research, the use of resources and research outputs, respect for society and others, and scientific misconduct and research regulation, is what research ethics is all about. Some commonly known concepts of research ethics principles include integrity, openness, objectivity, honesty, confidentiality, respect for intellectual property, and responsible publication. Ethical standards in research help ensure that researchers are held legally liable and promote values that are important in joint projects. The most crucial reason for research ethics is that the ethical norms promote the research aims, such as error avoidance. Research ethics explains how the participants will be protected in data collection, and safety and privacy must be paramount.

The main principles used in research are justice, respect for persons, and beneficence, as stipulated in the Belmont report. The paper highlights the ethical concepts that the Commission selected as basic ethical principles throughout its discussions (Adashi et al., 2018). The first basic principle is respect for persons, incorporating two ethical convictions. The beliefs include that a person with limited autonomy should be protected and that persons should be considered self-sufficient. Thus, the respect principle is divided into a moral obligation to protect persons who have lost their autonomy and a moral obligation to acknowledge autonomy. Respecting autonomy is giving weight to the autonomous person's considered opinions and choices and, at the same time avoiding going against their actions unless they affect other individuals. In some cases, human beings are not capable of self-determination. According to the report, the potential for self-determination matures throughout an individual's life, and some people lose it due to disease or mental incapacity. Some people require considerable protection, including banning them from potentially harmful activities. As a result, respect should be based on the likelihood of benefit vs. the risk of harm. Regarding research involving human subjects, respect for individuals necessitates that the participants participate voluntarily and with sufficient information.

The basic principle of beneficence requires that a person's well-being be secured, not just protecting them from harm and respecting their decisions. The principle covers the act of charity or kindness that go beyond obligations (Anabo et al., 2019). Therefore, beneficence is taken as an obligation and has two general roles of the action: Do no harm, maximize the advantages, and minimize the risks. To avoid injury, one must first learn what is dangerous, and in the process, one may be harmed. Because these principles extend from specific research initiatives to the entire research enterprise, they impact both investigators and society. When it comes to scientific research, community members must be aware of the long-term benefits and risks that may arise due to enhanced research. Children's research is an example of where the principle is applicable, and study in this area allows for the avoidance of harm that previously accepted ordinary activities might cause.

The third basic principle is justice, which examines if the research is fair in its distribution. In research, injustice arises when a person's right to a benefit is denied for no good reason. According to Anabo et al. (2019), the principle of justice indicates that equals should be treated equally. The principle requires clarification as to who is unequal and who is equal. The formulas used to distribute costs and rewards should be distributed; the formulas are that each person should receive an equal share, that each person should receive according to societal contribution, that each person should receive according to the effort put in, that each person should receive according to individual merit, and that each person should receive according to individual need. For a long time, concepts of justice have been important in human subjects research. According to the principle of justice, the research should not include populations unlikely to benefit from the study's future use.

Ethical considerations

In my capstone project, I will apply ethical considerations for the victims in Haven as I collect information from them. Having the Havens dealing with victims and survivors is paramount for me to observe ethics correctly. I will observe various ethical consideration principles in protecting the participants and use different strategies to ensure that each of the principles is maximized so that I can achieve the highest level of ethical considerations. These principles, their description, and how I will mitigate the risks involved are explained below.

Informed consent- in ensuring that I respect the victims as I collect information, I will allow them to choose whether to be interviewed or included in the survey. Providing this opportunity will depend on whether the informed consent is satisfied (Meng & Qian, 2021). In such a sense, I will ensure that the study participants used in the study have entered voluntarily and they have information concerning what it means for them to take part. I will explain every detail to the participant on the capstone project goal and why I could use them in the survey. Participants who will give their consent at this point I will use for the study survey; for those who will be reluctant to join, I will have them out of the study. To ensure that I have a maximum number of participants in my project to meet the project's goal, I will offer a critical explanation of the clinical investigation, expected duration of study, procedure to be used, and explain the benefits and risks discomforts. I will explain to them about their confidentiality and future benefits of participating in the project, and before the activity, I will develop a risk monitoring plan as postulated by (Josephson & Smale, 2021). I will ensure that the documentation consent, competency, decision capacity, and disclosure are observed to mitigate participants' risk.

Protection and privacy- in applying the protection principle, I will ensure that the means I use will not frighten, embarrass, harm, or offend the participants. I will ensure that the risk of harm is not greater than their normal life. Privacy is the person's interest to control access to others and themselves. I will only use participants who chose to volunteer and further ensure that I will not force the participants to give or reveal any information forcefully. In this project, I will mitigate the risk of privacy by coding the participants as A and B so that their information will not be revealed and will aid in increasing the probability of getting honest answers from the victims in my project. To reduce the risk of privacy issues, I will ensure that all the identities are confidential during the interview process and the subsequent reports by being careful that the information published has inadequate information that can lead to the identification of the participants. Having control over the participant information will maximize my study potential to mitigate the risk of privacy and protection.

Confidentiality- having gained the researcher's consent and assured them of the protection and privacy, the participant will willingly give their responses depending on the study questions administered. Therefore, I will ensure that the information given concerning each participant, which I should not disclose to other persons. The principle of confidentiality is in line with the principle of privacy, thus making a mileage success in the principle of protection and privacy, and the principle of confidentiality becomes easy to follow (Fleming & Zegwaard, 2018). Some confidentiality risks include stigmatization, social embarrassment, and economic and social status damage such as loss of health insurance and employment. Understanding that breach of confidentiality undermines credibility and trust enjoyed in research, I will ensure that any information such as names, places of residence, and birthdates remains confidential during the study and post-studies.

The anonymity of individuals and organizations- in providing anonymity of the information collected in my capstone project, I shall make certain that the information I obtain from the participants does not contain any personally identifiable information, such as email addresses, addresses, or names. One should ensure that the project does not link the individual responses with the research identities (Hunter et al., 2018). Anonymity helps protect the participant's privacy and assures them that the information they reveal cannot be used to identify them. The information collected will be secured through password-protected files to reduce the anonymity risk. The voluntary consent accredits a sign of agreement on the issue of anonymity to the participant. Throughout my research, the information collected from participants requires no personal or identifying information.

Transparency: In research, individuals have different interests, and some interests might compete with each other. Transparency implies that one should not conceal information from others interested in knowing the information as a researcher. I will ensure that the collected data and underlying claims are available for other members to evaluate. After data collection from the participants, I will mitigate the risk of doubt about the collected data via reporting the results, informing the participants, and sharing the data. Conflicts of interest are when other personal considerations may compromise the investigator's professional judgment. In my capstone project, my research has no conflict of interest and is intended for the mentioned study gap on the victims of sexual assault and family violence. In mitigating the conflict of interest in the project, I will adopt a conflict of interest policy, promote a culture of disclosure and maintain a register of interest. Also, some of the participants might have interests that conflict with the study. To avoid the risk of them providing information that favors their interest, each of the questions was set to invoke the individual desires within the project.

Bias in research ethics deals with the act of the researcher influencing the investigation process either knowingly or unknowingly. Conformity bias can be present in respondents who behave like those around them rather than using their judgment. People are seen to be more comfortable mimicking others. In the study, I will ensure that participant is not biased by ensuring that I have identified the correct participants, especially in my case, women who have had family assaults and have financial constraints, and find it difficult for them to have a comfortable house to live in. targeting such participants gives more courage that the study will not have conformity bias within it implying that research outcomes will be valid. In this study, I have no conflict of interest; thus, I will encourage one outcome of the study. To avoid study bias, both genders are to understand the problem from the root level rather than using women who are victims of assault. Lastly, to ensure no bias within the study, the research questions were evaluated to ensure that the statements were not biased.

On the vulnerable population, the study specifically will not collect data from them. The vulnerable population includes economically disadvantaged individuals with diminished capacity, children, prisoners, ill individuals, and racial minorities (Arifin 2018). The population was excluded from the study because of the difficulty of obtaining informed consent due to situational circumstances. Population considerations consider women who have economic stability due to the abuser effects, which the long-term effect is the need for maintaining the long-term shelter. This population was ethically considered for the research because Haven deals with The study looks at the financial impediments experienced by women and its role in restricting their freedom, especially those abused by their intimate partners. Of the major reasons considered, financial instability is explained to be one of the greatest reasons why women experience limited choices after gaining their freedom. Generally, economic instability is used to bind women and their abusers. The long-term effect is that such women will need assistance maintaining a long-term shelter. The population was chosen because Haven deals with family violence and sexual assault by exploring gender, violence, and sexual assault.

Conclusion

Haven is a vital nonprofit organization that helps maintain women who experience family violence and sexual assault. Such women encounter challenges of financial impediments, which results in them living in poor houses, but Haven's come into play to help this out. In understanding this problem and interacting with the victims of assault and family violence, this paper has shown that ethical consideration is important. The study has shown that research ethics has three basic principles that every researcher should consider in the research process: justice, beneficence, and respect for persons. Of the three principles, the most important principle where all other principles of ethical consideration lie is that of respect for persons. The study has shown that it is important to have informed consent before proceeding with the study and dealing with the participants.

A researcher should explain the need for the research and explain both risks and benefits to the participants so that other principles of ethical consideration can be easily applicable and the research findings can be valid. Principles like bias, transparency, privacy protection, the anonymity of individuals, and conflicts of interests all depend on the participants' informed consent. From this study on research ethics, I will ensure that I follow the research ethics so that the results I will get will enable me to make valid conclusions concerning Haven's house building strategy for women who had family violence and sexual assault earlier in life. From this study, my DPP ethically aligns with the Belmont report and the ethical considerations principles in dealing with the Haven staff while conducting interviews and participating/interacting with the victims while providing financial literacy training.

References

Adashi, E. Y., Walters, L. B., & Menikoff, J. A. (2018). The Belmont Report at 40: reckoning with time. American Journal of Public Health, 108(10), 1345-1348.

Anabo, I. F., Elexpuru-Albizuri, I., & Villardón-Gallego, L. (2019). Revisiting the Belmont Report's ethical principles in internet-mediated research: Perspectives from disciplinary associations in the social sciences. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(2), 137-149.

Arifin, S. R. M. (2018). Ethical considerations in qualitative study. International Journal of Care Scholars, 1(2), 30-33.

Fleming, J., & Zegwaard, K. E. (2018). Methodologies, Methods and Ethical Considerations for Conducting Research in Work-Integrated Learning. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 19(3), 205-213.

Hunter, R. F., Gough, A., O'Kane, N., McKeown, G., Fitzpatrick, A., Walker, T., ... & Kee, F. (2018). Ethical issues in social media research for public health. American Journal of Public Health, 108(3), 343-348.

Josephson, A., & Smale, M. (2021). What do you mean by "informed consent"? Ethics in economic development research. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 43(4), 1305-1329.

Meng, Q., & Qian, X. (2021). Ethics: Informed Consent, Patient Privacy. Clinical Molecular Diagnostics, 39-44.