Ethical standards are essential to keep in anything that an individual performs. This implies that it is also crucial to maintain or keep those ethical standards when doing research or experiments. In my case, being a research learner, it is more crucial to me to maintain my research ethics and accept any other ethical issue that is present in my research question and methodology like data collection types, considerations of features of your sample, a possibility for bias among others (American Psychological Association, 2017). After accepting them, it becomes necessary for me to establish and point out the type of APA ethical standards that are in question and explain measures taken to minimize these problems to ensure APA ethical standards’ integrity is kept.
Research question statement
I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and am taking Lamictal, which is why I am interested in this topic. Bipolar disorder (BD) is a cyclic mood disorder characterized by alternating episodes of mania or hypomania and depression interspersed with euthymic periods (Besag et al., 2021). According to research, Lamotrigine (LTG) demonstrated some mood improvement in patients treated for epilepsy, leading to clinical studies in patients with BD and its eventual introduction as maintenance therapy for the prevention of depressive relapse in euthymic patients. Therefore, my research or study question on this is: How effective is Lamotrigine for Bipolar disorder? The null hypothesis is: that Lamotrigine is effective in patients with bipolar disorder.
Possible ethical issues
Characteristics of the sample include thirty people subdivided into two groups, women and men. One group (15 individuals) is those using Lamotrigine to manage BD, and the other group is using other medications like lithium to manage the disorder. The small sample size may be difficult to make the correlation valid and reliable. All the participants accepted in the face-to-face interview that they were suffering from bipolar disease and were using Lamotrigine and other medications to manage the condition; however, anybody among them could have been unfaithful to get into the survey for alternative reasons (American Psychological Association, 2017). Therefore, I should find out the answers to the questions such as “Does he possess other disease issues like epilepsy? Does he use other drugs to manage the BD? What are the most common symptoms of BD? These questions will assist me in understanding BD better.
APA ethical standings
All researchers must adhere to the APA ethical standards when performing studies and experiments. I must uphold all the principles of ethics, which include A: Responsibility and Fidelity, B: Respect for People’s Dignity and Rights, C: Nonmaleficence, and D: Integrity (Psychological Association, 2017).
Regarding all possible ethical problems indicated, ethical standard 3.04-avoiding harm ( (American Psychological Association, 2017) would have to be endorsed to avoid harm being encountered by anybody taking part in my research and reduce any foreseeable harm that may come up. Therefore, the ethical standards 3.10 (informed consent), a,b,c, and d would all have to be upheld (American Psychological Association, 2017). This means that I have to ensure the participants understand what the research comprises, what they are required to do, and that they may end their participation at any given time during the research without results. They accept to take part in the research. Also, for the ethical standard 4.01-Maintaining Confidentiality, I should make sure members of the research’s features and identities will not be disclosed to anybody else.
Methods of eliminating and minimizing problems
To protect each participant’s safety, they are grouped into small classes and given various names to be identified. In case of possible harm, it will be dealt with instantly and changes the structure of the groups if needed. In the interview, informant consent will be elaborated on. An imaginary name will be assigned to each person, and names will be related to a number in the written data on their results. Colleagues and assistances will only understand their protection numbers and names out of Confidentiality and respect the members’ rights. All evaluations will be reliable and valid without bias and suitable for the research and within the rules concerning resources related to this disorder. All biased opinion will be kept out of the research and results by omitting all passion and knowledge an assistant, colleague, or researcher possess.
Conclusion
I must uphold all ethical standards in my study as a research learner. This is to ensure members are not harmed, Confidentiality is not broken, and members know what is required of them. I need to ensure the data is reliable, valid, and has no bias. Also, I need to be professional and ethical and reduce any possible problems instantly.
References
American Psychological Association. (2017, January 1). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Retrieved from American Psychological Association
Besag, F. M., Vasey, M. J., Sharma, A. N., & Lam, I. C. (2021). Efficacy and safety of Lamotrigine in the treatment of bipolar disorder across the lifespan: a systematic review. Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, 11, 20451253211045870.
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