EDITORIAL
Ethics in the nursing research
Marcia Tereza Luz Lisboa
Assistant Professor of the Fundamental Nursing Department and Assistant Coordinator of Research and Development of the EEAN/UFRJ.
Coordinator of the Ethics in Reasearch Comitee of the EEAN and HESFA/UFRJ.
Ethics is a word of many meanings. It is worried on as the people must act and relate with each other. The ethics not only describe as the things are, but also it is worried about the establishment of norms or standards for an ideal life and behavior. It faces itself to questions of the good and the evil, of the right or wrong behavior, of the character or of the reasons.
According to Boff, the ethics come from the Greek word ethos and assign the human residence. The human being separates a part of the world for, molding it according them skill, to construct a protective and permanent shelter. The ethics, as human residence, is not something ready and constructed at once. The human being is always becoming habitable the house that constructed for themselves. Ethics means, therefore, everything what helps to become the environment better so that it is a healthful residence: materially sustainable, psychologically integrated and spiritually fruitful.
The focus of our ethical quarrels was dislocated lately from the field of the practical, of the professional exercise, for the ethical development of our research, situation that owes itself to the magnifying of the domain of the nurses on the practical of research and of the expansion of the after-graduation courses in nursing.
The Nursing already uses and argues referring subjects to the ethics and bioethics, in the approach of the daily practical dilemmas, of the moral principles, of the professional ethics, of the rights and of the obligations in the health care and of the rights of the patient (right of the physicist deficient, mental deficient, the psychiatric, aged patient etc). It was missing to the profession an explicit ethical approach to the research. Isn't means that our research was being made without ethics, furthermore this is a quarrel that is only ten years old in the work of field in research, in Brazil.
Science always kept a shady side on the processes that had resulted in vaccines, therapeutical discovered and medical practices, to cite some typical areas of research with human beings. Which was the price (high) of the human beings to contribute for this (un)necessary development? When we study the history of science, we confront ourselves with true atrocities carried through in name of it. The experiments with human beings express an equation in check, apply a measure of value considering in the scale suffering versus profit and risk of unknown consequences versus reward of the scientific discoveries.
Since 1996, the health area is under influence of the Resolution #196/96, of the National Advice of Health, from the Ministry of Health, that guides on the research with human beings. This resolution incorporates, under the optics of the individual and of the collectives, the four basics referential of bioethics: autonomy, beneficence, not-slander, and justice. As a standard of the ethics, the autonomy mentions the independence of a person representing an agreement to respect the rights of the other when determining the course of the action. Through the Term of Free and Clarified Assent of the individual-target of one search, we are treating them with dignity, respecting them in their autonomy and defending them in their vulnerability. The beneficence is mentioned to make positive actions to help other people. It is the balance between risks and benefits, current and potential, individual or collective, what leads the development of a research to compromise to the maximum of benefits and the minimum of damages and risks. The not-slander is the commitment to not harm, is the guarantee of that previsible damages will be prevented. Finally, justice means the social relevance of the research, the significant advantages for the citizens of the research and the minimizations of the responsibility for the vulnerable citizens, what it guarantees the equal consideration of the involved interests, not losing the direction of its destination partner-humanitarian.
The Resolution also encloses the creation of Committee of Ethics in Research. (CEP). It is part of a long historical trajectory of the humanity to guarantee the human rights, starting on the Code of Nuremberg, a specific document on ethics in the research in human beings that assures the respect to the self-determination of the human being (autonomy). From the Committees of Ethics, the endorsement of a consolidated group is gotten assigned to think, to study, to evaluate, to guide, and to guarantee that our research is taking care of to all the resolutions published for the National Advice of Health on the subject.
The CEP had been created to take care of the demand of the institutions for recognizing the scientific and technological advances, the increase of the public conscience and the participation of the nurses in the world of the research with human beings. The Committee of Ethics in Research appears as an interdisciplinary and independent collegiate, that must exist even more in the institutions that carry through research involving human beings, as in the case of the Anna Nery School of Nursing and of the Hospital School San Francisco de Assis, both from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The CEP was instituted to defend the interests of the citizens of the research in their integrity and dignity and to contribute to the development of the research according to the established ethical standards.
The CEP has been not only responsible for the evaluation, but also for the accompaniment of the ethical aspects of the research involving human beings. It bases itself in every movement, national and international lines of direction that guarantee the right of the human being. The mission, then, is to safeguard the rights and the dignity of the citizens of the research.
Finally, it stands out that this Journal, confirming a general trend of the Nursing and of the Health, when requesting to their subscribers the "Approved" seeming of some Committee of Ethics in Research for the search be published, contributes for the guarantee of a better ethical quality of their articles.
REFERENCE
Boff L. Ética da vida. Brasília: Letraviva, 1999. 241 p.
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
08 Dec 2009 -
Date of issue
Apr 2006
