Abstract
BackgroundSuicide research aims to contribute to a better understanding of suicidal behaviour and its prevention. However, there are many ethical challenges in this research field, for example, regarding consent and potential risks to participants. While studies to-date have focused on the perspective of the researchers, this study aimed to investigate the views and experiences of members of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) in dealing with suicide-related study applications.MethodsThis qualitative study entailed a thematic analysis using an inductive approach. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample (N = 15) of HREC Chairs or their delegates from Australian research-intensive universities. The interview guide included questions regarding the ethical concerns and challenges in suicide-related research raised by HREC members, how they dealt with those challenges and what advice they could give to researchers.ResultsThe analysis identified four main themes: (1) HREC members’ experiences of reviewing suicide-related study applications, (2) HREC members’ perceptions of suicide, suicide research, and study participants, (3) Complexity in HREC members’ decision-making processes, and (4) HREC members’ relationships with researchers.ConclusionsReliance on ethical guidelines and dialogue with researchers are crucial in the assessment of suicide-related study applications. Both researchers and HREC members may benefit from guidance and resources on how to conduct ethically sound suicide-related studies. Developing working relationships will be likely to help HRECs to facilitate high quality, ethical suicide-related research and researchers to conduct such research.
Highlights
Suicide research aims to contribute to a better understanding of suicidal behaviour and its prevention
The analysis resulted in four main themes: i) Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) experiences of reviewing suicide-related study applications, ii) HREC perceptions of suicide, suicide research, and study participants, iii) Complexity in HREC decision-making processes, and iv) HREC relationships with researchers
This was an open question, where no assumption was made about the specific types of suicide research that respondents had reviewed. Respondents spoke to their experience of reviewing a range of different types of qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods research involving suicide and/or self-harm, including primary prevention research involving humans, cross-sectional survey-based research, and observational studies. It was more common for their HRECs to encounter suicide as an incidental concern in broader mental and other health-related study applications than when reviewing suicide-related study applications
Summary
Suicide research aims to contribute to a better understanding of suicidal behaviour and its prevention. There are many ethical challenges in this research field, for example, regarding consent and potential risks to participants. While studies to-date have focused on the perspective of the researchers, this study aimed to investigate the views and experiences of members of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) in dealing with suicide-related study applications. While high quality research may inform effective practices and policies in suicide prevention, research in this field faces ethical challenges. There is the view that excluding them will preclude the assessment of effectiveness of interventions for those most in need [4, 6]. A few studies have investigated the experiences of these two groups, and most of these have focused on researchers
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