Page 43 - Human Rights

Faculty of Nursing
Adult care Nursing Department

By contrast, the discouragement or denial of nurse training on the grounds of disability represents

a barrier to the delivery of effective care as well as denying potentially effective nurses an

opportunity to contribute to this area of health care.

2.6.2 Nurses and research

Increasingly nurses are becoming involved in the design and/or conduct of medical research.

The principles governing research involving patients are based on fundamental precepts of
professional ethics and the human rights of subjects and patients.

Foremost among these are:

respect for the individual and his or her autonomy; obtaining informed and meaningful consent

from participants; respecting and protecting the confidentiality of information received or found
during the research; balancing risks to the subject and beneficial outcomes; and ensuring that

methods and techniques used in research conform to accepted scientific standards.

Much nursing research is based on qualitative methodology which carries its own particular risks.

Nurse researchers should be accountable for the research they carry out and for the
interpretation they give to findings.

2.7 Nurses and public health crises: HIV/AIDS

The United Nations and the World Health Organization estimated that in 2004, rates of people

infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) rose to their highest levels ever, with an

estimated 39.4 million people living with the virus across the world.

Although one of the eight Millennium Development Goals290 is to halt and reverse the spread of

HIV/AIDS, current indications are that the present response is not enough and certain areas of the

world are likely to see a rapid increase in HIV rates unless dramatic action is taken.

40 Academic Year 2025/2026