Ethical Issues in Bereavement Research with Minors: A Scoping Review

Abstract

There are various ethical issues in bereavement research. Most of the literature focuses on ethical issues involving adult participants. However, it is conceivable that research with minors poses particular ethical challenges, and little is known of the ethical issues involved in bereavement research with minors. A scoping review adhering to the PRISMA-ScR guidelines was conducted to address this gap and to contribute to better research practices. Searches in Embase, Emcare, EBM Reviews, Medline, PsycINFO (all accessed via Ovid), CINAHL, Scopus, SSCI, and the journals Death Studies and OMEGA identified 40 relevant peer-reviewed articles, while 25 relevant theses/dissertations were identified through ProQuest Global. The main ethical concerns identified include informed consent, risk to participants, and privacy and confidentiality. Findings of this review may inform bereavement researchers when designing their studies and to ensure the safety of their participants. The findings can also be used in clarifying the decisions made to a research ethics board, thus contributing to the quality of the research in this field. Future reviews may examine how the ethical issues reported in this review are similar or different to those reported in research with minors in other fields and expand to include more experimental research.

Language acquisition and identity negotiation: Discursive positioning of Indonesian adolescents learning English

“…Furthermore, ethical considerations are paramount in conducting research with adolescents. Informed consent and confidentiality measures have been implemented to ensure the protection and wellbeing of the participants, in line with ethical guidelines for qualitative research involving minors (Morrow, 2008;Park et al, 2022;Taquette & Borges da Matta Souza, 2022). In summary, the qualitative research approach, encompassing interviews, observations, and materials analysis, is central to this study's methodology.…”

Doing the Right Thing – Ethical Issues in Designing Suicide Prevention Studies

“…One could argue that posting information online publicly implies consent for others to use that information. Nonetheless, there is still the question of what expectations the posters had when posting their data, whether such implied consent is applicable, for example, to minors, and what strategies researchers apply to deidentify the data used in their analysis and publications (Bailey et al, 2020; Conway & O’Connor, 2016; Park et al, 2022). Researchers may also face major ethical issues when they detect a study participant with an apparent acute risk of suicide, for example, based on participants’ social media postings, survey replies, or real-time data (Nock et al, 2021; Podlogar et al, 2016).…”