Best Practices in Mental Health Research Ethics Conference Series

心理健康研究的参与者经常与其他类型的医学研究的参与者有显著的不同，包括：耻辱，制度化，认知缺陷和贫困。临床精神病学研究中的研究方法也经常涉及其他研究中罕见的程序，包括洗脱期和安慰剂对照。结果是，心理健康研究提出了独特的伦理问题。虽然尊重人、善行和正义等伦理原则可以为伦理话语提供一个框架（国家委员会，1979年），但对研究伦理的实证研究是必要的，以确定保护和尊重人类参与者的有效和创造性的方法（Sieber，2004年; B。Stanley等人，1987）。虽然这一领域的大量研究得到了资助，但尚未对研究结果进行系统审查，以提出最佳做法建议或制定全面的研究议程。该应用程序提出了一个独特的5年会议系列“心理健康研究伦理的最佳实践”，这将为研究这些问题的研究人员提供一个机会，分享他们的研究结果，并作为一个科学家社区制定未来计划。每次会议将包括：1）一个公开会议，有3名全体发言人，受访者和小组讨论，然后是2）一个闭门专家小组会议，将审查关于会议主题的经验文献，并为最佳实践和进一步研究提出建议。会议系列目标包括：1）专家小组会议目标（主要目标）：召集一个专家小组，根据对现有数据的批判性审查，为精神卫生研究中的伦理最佳实践提出建议，并为未来的研究伦理提出建议。每次会议的评论和建议将作为同行评议的文章发表; 2）公共全体会议目标（次要目标）：通过提供继续教育学分的公共会议教育心理健康研究人员。每次会议将有一个专家小组，由12-13名成员组成（项目主任，4名指导委员会成员，2名全体发言人，3名常设专家小组成员和2-3名进行相关研究的其他成员）。选择主要参与者是为了确保不同利益相关者和专家的存在，包括伦理学家，领先的心理健康研究人员，IRB成员，心理健康消费者，心理健康倡导者以及多样性和文化能力研究人员。所有会议将在密苏里州圣路易斯圣路易斯大学校园内举行。会议主题包括：“知情同意：评估决策能力和增强理解”（第一年）;“让利益相关者参与心理健康研究”（第二年，暂定）;“管理和披露临床试验中的风险”（第三年，暂定）;“招募：激励，自愿性和社区的作用”（第四年，暂定）;和“最近的趋势和未来的方向”（第五年，具体待定）。为了发现精神障碍的原因和有效的治疗方法，有必要进行精神卫生研究，但这项研究必须以合乎道德的方式进行。需要进行实证研究，以确定如何最好地实现保护和尊重参与者的目标，同时促进可能有益的研究。拟议的会议系列将审查解决心理健康研究的伦理方面的实证研究，以确定最佳做法和需要进一步调查的领域。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Participants in mental health research frequently differ from participants in other types of medical research in significant ways including: stigma, institutionalization, cognitive deficits, and poverty. Research methods in clinical psychiatric research also routinely involve procedures that are rarer in other research including washout periods and placebo controls. The result is that mental health research presents unique ethical problems. While ethical principles like respect for persons, beneficence, and justice may provide a framework for ethical discourse (National Commission, 1979),empirical research on research ethics is necessary to determine effective and creative ways to protect and respect human participants (Sieber, 2004; B. Stanley et al, 1987). Although a significant amount of research in this area has been funded, the results have not been systematically reviewed to make recommendations for best practices or develop a comprehensive research agenda. This application proposes a unique 5-year conference series on "Best Practices in Mental Health Research Ethics" that will provide an opportunity for researchers working on these issues to share their findings and develop future plans as a community of scientists. Each conference will consist of: 1) a public conference with 3 plenary speakers, respondents, and a panel discussion, followed by 2) a closed-session expert panel meeting which will review the empirical literature on the conference theme and develop recommendations for best practices and further research. Conference series objectives include: 1) Expert panel session objective (primary objective): Convene an expert panel to develop recommendations for ethical best practices in mental health research based on a critical review of existing data and to make recommendations for future research on research ethics. The reviews and recommendations from each conference will be published as a peer-reviewed article; 2) Public plenary session objective (secondary objective): Educate mental health researchers via public conference sessions that provide continuing education credit. Each conference will have an expert panel with 12-13 members (Program Director, 4 Steering Committee members, 2 plenary speakers, 3 standing expert panelists, and 2-3 other members who have conducted relevant research). Key participants were selected to ensure a presence of diverse stakeholders and experts, including ethicists, leading mental health researchers, IRB members, a mental health consumer, a mental health advocate, and a diversity and cultural-competence researcher. All conferences will be held in St. Louis, MO, on the campus of St. Louis University. Conference topics include: "Informed Consent: Assessing Decision-Making Capacity and Enhancing Understanding" (year 1); "Engaging the Stakeholders in Mental Health Research" (year 2, tentative); "Managing and Disclosing Risks in Clinical Trials" (year 3, tentative); "Recruitment: Incentives, Voluntariness, and the Role of the Community" (year 4, tentative); and "Recent Trends and Future Directions" (year 5, specifics to be determined). Relevance Mental health research is necessary in order to discover the causes of and effective treatments for mental disorders, but this research must be conducted in an ethical manner. Empirical research is needed to determine how best to accomplish the aims of protecting and respecting participants while facilitating potentially beneficial research. The proposed conference series will review empirical studies that address the ethical aspects of mental health research to identify best practices and areas requiring further investigation.