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Ethical Issues in Conducting Research with Pediatric and Clinical Child Populations in Applied Settings

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Handbook of Research in Pediatric and Clinical Child Psychology

Abstract

Over and beyond the general ethical principles with which all psychologists should be thoroughly familiar (American Psychological Assoication, 1992; Canter, Bennett, Jones, & Nagy, 1994), research with pediatric and clinical child populations raises special ethical problems that challenge investigators to develop special strategies in order to conduct their research in a responsible manner. The work described in this chapter, which is based on research experiences in hospital, school, and clinic settings, describes a number of knotty ethical problems that have not been well articulated in previous work. These issues include considerations in working with groups that are charged with the oversight of research ethics in clinical settings, problems related to confidentiality of data, obtaining appropriate consent, managing risk-related to psychological vulnerability, for example, depression in adolescents, and maintaining appropriate role boundaries as researchers in clinical settings. Using illustrations from research with varied populations of children and families, we describe a number of ethical issues that have arisen in data collection in clinical settings and consider strategies to manage them. Our aim is to help researchers to anticipate and prevent ethical problems wherever possible and to provide suggestions concerning how their impact on families can be minimized.

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Drotar, D. et al. (2000). Ethical Issues in Conducting Research with Pediatric and Clinical Child Populations in Applied Settings. In: Drotar, D. (eds) Handbook of Research in Pediatric and Clinical Child Psychology. Issues in Clinical Child Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4165-3_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4165-3_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-6869-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-4165-3

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