Foreword

The changing face of nursing over the past 20 years or so is seldom more clearly demonstrated than by the increased involvement, as supervisor, commissioner or participant, of the nurse in research. Both the nursing profession's expanding professional role and the status of research in health care in general have contributed to placing the nursing practitioner at the centre of a culture in health care which strives for progress and seeks to institutionalise evidence-based practice.

Although the shifting nature of the nurse's role is to be welcomed, it is vital that practitioners bear in mind fundamental principles which must inform all research. In order to do this, guidance is needed to ensure that the nurse, now an active and involved participant in health-care teams, can effectively safeguard the rights and interests of their patients, while at the same time contributing to the progress that research seeks to achieve.

This pamphlet seeks to clarify ethical problems in research and also to provide for nurses a set of standards of best practice against which they can measure their involvement in research projects. It is written with clarity and balance and will provide an excellent starting point for any nursing practitioner who is contemplating initiating or becoming involved in research. By identifying core values in a readable and intelligible way, this pamphlet should prove to be invaluable for nurses in the current health-care climate.

Sheila A.M. McLean, International Bar Association Professor of Law and Ethics in Medicine, Director, Institute of Law and Ethics in Medicine, Glasgow University

Introduction

The first RCN research guidance, Ethics Related to Research in Nursing, was published in 1977 when nursing research in the UK was in its infancy.