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Drug Research With Children And Responsibilities For Nurses
Nurcan ERTUĞa
aHacettepe Üniversitesi Hemşirelik Yüksekokulu, ANKARA
Conducting adult drug researches on children is necessary for improvement of children’s treatment and healthcare. Because infant and child physiology is different from that of adults and certain disorders are observed only in the childhood period.
Due to their being dependent, defenseless and weak, and not capable of making legal decisions, the children are a vulnerable group. Vulnerable groups cannot give informed consent by themselves. The children on whom the drug research will be conducted must be sufficiently informed about the research and their consent must be taken. Children who are seven years old or above can be included in the consent process. If the child’s legal guardians accept the participation in research but the child does not, even though legally the consent is obtained, ethically it is not obtained.
In the drug researches planned to be conducted at a clinic, like all healtcare providers, nurses also have many responsibilities. First of all, the child’s/family’s decision to participate in research must be evaluated from an ethical viewpoint. Parents are usually concerned that their decision may influence the care given to their children. For this reason, they must be adequately informed on this subject.
Nurses are responsible for assessment and evaluation of side effects of the researched drug. Nurses must also know the hospital rules pertaining to control, labeling, storage and distribution of the researched drug.One of the most important responsibilities of nurses is to know that drug research is being conducted at the clinic, and to be included in this research. The nurses must be included in drug researches and in this way adhere to rules of professionalism required by their profession, such as those pertaining to care of the sick and defending patients’ rights.Keywords: Ethics, nursesTurkiye Klinikleri J Med Ethics 2007, 15:81-89
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