Administrators' Perspectives on Ethical Issues in Long-Term Care Research

Abstract

Ethical issues are a significant potential barrier to much-needed research in long-term care settings. LTC stakeholder perspectives are largely absent from the development of regulation and guidelines. Fifteen long-term care administrators were interviewed as part of a study of ethical issues in community-based, long-term care research. Established qualitative procedures for conducting content analysis were used to organize the data. Findings suggest that existing mechanisms to protect human subjects do not take into account important differences between academic and long-term care settings. The full potential of LTC research will not be realized until supportive processes to enhance human subjects protections are developed in a way that is reflective of the LTC environment.