Research Methods
There are many challenges that would face a research team attempting to study children who have prolonged exposure to health care settings. The first obvious obstacle would be the reliability of the children as research subjects. Children are not necessarily the most articulate beings, as they are still developing their vocabulary. They are also very emotional beings as they are younger because they are also still learning how to separate their emotions from the facts of their surroundings. Whether they are in a hospital setting for themselves or for an ill family member, the child will be more likely to tell you how they feel about the situation, which makes it very difficult to measure. The second challenge I can foresee is whether or not the children’s parents would give consent for the children to be studied. Since the research is about exploring hard facts (numbers, circumstances, and experiences) regarding children who are frequently in a health care setting, the parents will be less likely to want to further expose and potentially traumatize their children. This is more likely to happen to children who have a terminally ill family member or if the child themselves are gravely ill. The parent would not want to have a random person involved in their children’s lives during this critical time because the child is already experiencing enough negativity and stress, why add to it. The third challenge that comes to mind is whether or not the research is even ethical. If the child, for example, is terminally ill or is seriously ill is it ethical for researchers to potentially further upset the child into discussing how they feel or the details of what is happening. Children react similarly, but also differently, than adults do in situations such as this. The difference is, society as a whole, and definitely the children’s parents, want to protect their child as much as they can from situations that can cause emotional or physical harm. Since the child may be ill, the parent cannot stop the physical harm but have control over the emotional harm. Inversely, if the parent is ill and the child is present, the parent cannot stop the emotional harm but can block any potential physical harm that may result from increased stress (adding to the already present stress of an ill parent) due to the study. Ethical issues arise as to whether or not children have the potential to be harmed during this study.
In order to overcome these obstacles, one would need to carefully plan and articulate how the research will be conducted. For example, for the first obstacle of lack of information from a developing child, the researchers could and should include children’s specialists on their research team in order to know how to effectively interact with children in order to elicit the types of responses desired. A child psychologist and/or pediatrician would be beneficial to the research team. By adding members with specialties working with children, this can help ease the second obstacle: the parents. If there are professionals affiliated with the research whose primary knowledge is about children and the researchers clearly articulate how the research will be conducted, why it is being conducted, and the likely impact it will have on their children, parents will be more likely to allow their children’s involvement in the study. If there are no surprises, parents feel more comfortable their children will be safe physically and mentally during the course of the study. And for the third obstacle, by including the professionals who are most familiar with this test group, the issue of ethics is combated because the professionals will be able to know when the ethical boundaries are coming close and when they have been crossed. Having more than one professional from the field of working with children will be beneficial, maybe having two child psychologists and at least one pediatrician will help bridge the gap between the research and ethical concerns that may arise along the way.
Reference:
Dorsten, Linda Eberst & Lawrence Hotchkiss. Research Methods and Society:
Foundations of Social Inquiry. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.
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