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Competing or Complementary?: Ethical Considerations and the Quality of Randomized Trials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

Judith Lumley  and
Hilda Bastian
Judith Lumley
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Hilda Bastian
Affiliation:
Consumer Advocate, Blackwood
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Abstract

The ethical principles of beneficence (doing the best for one's patients and clients), nonmaleficence (doing no harm), autonomy, justice, and equity, are positively associated with the quality of a trial rather than being opposed to it. Ethical considerations involve such important questions as appropriate design and documentation, participation rates, withdrawals or losses to follow-up, careful monitoring of safety and efficacy, timely completion, generalizability, and publication and dissemination of findings. When conflicts between ethical considerations and the trial's scientific quality do occur, the ethical considerations must be paramount.

Type
Special Section: The Quality of the Medical Evidence: Is It Good Enough?
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Spring 1996 , pp. 247 - 263
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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