CLINICAL RESEARCH ETHICS AND PEDIATRIC HIV INFECTION (ETHICS, IMMUNE DEFICIENCY).
Contributors: University of Virginia.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 246
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This research study investigates the views of a select group of people about the ethics involved in the conduct of clinical research that uses children with Human Immunodeficiency Virus as subjects. Physician and nurse researchers, Institutional Review Board members, and parents of children with HIV were interviewed using an open-ended interview structure. The sessions were audiotaped. Twenty-eight interviews were conducted at four clinical sites in the eastern United States.

Qualitative data analysis was done to determine the predominant issues that emerged from the interviews. The data analysis reveals five main themes, which include fourteen categories. Thirty-three subcategories with significant ethical implications for pediatric HIV clinical research are examined.

Several significant issues are identified in this study. Under the theme of Present vs Future Care, it became apparent that the dual imperatives faced by all of those involved in the care of children with HIV, to provide care while concommitantly doing research, is causing some ethical concerns. Additionally, the theme regarding the Shift in the Research Ethics Paradigm: From Nonmaleficence to Beneficence illustrates that the application of traditional ethical norms to judge contemporary pediatric HIV clinical research practices may not be useful.

A conceptual finding of this study is that the traditional bioethical theoretical framework of justice-based principles may not be adequate to assess the contemporary moral practices in the domain studied. A newer framework that includes the ethics of context, entitled an ethic of care, may be more accurate in the ethical analysis of pediatric HIV research ethics. Several areas for further inquiry conceptually and empirically in these areas are suggested.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-08, Section: B, page: 4084.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1993.

School code: 0246.