Page 484 - Encyclopedia of Nursing Research

ROGERS’S SCIENCE OF UNITARy PERSONS n 451

conditions. In a similar manner, research data subjects who do and do not withdraw from
is not publicly connected to the research sub- studies involving particular diseases.
ject, thereby assuring the subjects’ privacy. The protection of human rights in R
Another way that the research subjects’ research studies is important to the moral
right to privacy is protected is by obtaining an integrity of nursing research. International
informed consent and signed permission for and professional codes of research ethics
invasive procedures used during the research strongly support the morality of research,
process. For example, informed consent must and the American Nurses Association’s
be obtained before passing a levine tube to Ethical Guidelines in the Conduct, Dissemination,
obtain gastric contents for analysis. Nursing and Implementation of Nursing Research (Silva,
research on the privacy of human subjects is 1995) supports the morality of nursing
not yet documented. Potential areas for nurs- research. However, nursing research on the
ing research are identifying how research protection of human rights in research is at
studies protect or do not protect the privacy an early stage of development. As the 21st
of human subjects, describing research sub- century approaches, nursing research should
jects’ perceptions of how their privacy was include studies of how human rights are pro-
protected or not protected during a study, tected in research and the factors that inhibit
identifying researchers’ attitudes toward or promote their protection in various kinds
rules of confidentiality under different of research designs.
research conditions, and identifying insti-
tutional review board members’ knowledge Sara T. Fry
of and attitudes toward protection of human
subject privacy in research studies.
The right to refuse to participate in
research protects the subject from being RogeRs’s science of
coerced to participate in research and assures
that research subjects are truly voluntary. unitaRy peRsons
Nursing research on the right to refuse to
participate in research is not yet documented.
Potential areas for nursing research are iden- In 1970, Martha Rogers initially published
tifying the conditions under which research The Science of Irreducible Unitary Human
subjects refuse to participate in a study and Beings (1990). The model is derived from
describing why subjects have refused to many disciplines and results in an integrated
participate in particular types of research whole, unique to nursing. Within this frame-
studies. work, Rogers describes the natural process
Human subjects have the right to with- of change, the inherent quality of human
draw from a research study without any beings’ right to choose, and the infinite
untoward treatment of them. Even though nature of the relationship between man and
they had previously consented to participate the universe. Her description of nursing as a
in a research study, subjects have the right to learned profession, resulting from a strong aca-
change their minds and withdraw from the demic preparation and based in knowledge
study at any time. unique to nursing, was equally stunning
Nursing research on the right to with- and controversial. Through 1994, she revised
draw from a research study is not yet docu- and refined her theory. She makes several
mented. Potential areas for nursing research assumptions to be tested so that further
are identifying the conditions under which nursing knowledge can be formulated: the
research subjects withdraw from a study human being is greater than the sum of his parts;
and describing the course of treatment for there is constant, progressive interaction between