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| What is the relationship between confidentiality certificates and mandatory reporting requirements?
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| What are the limits and obligations of mandated reporting in the context of research activities?
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| Should information obtained in a study of children's behavior be disclosed to parents or guardians?
| The panel also selected several legal issues for review, although the scope of effort in this area was limited by the composition of the panel and the mandate of the study. As a result, the issue of children's rights in the context of adult relationships is not thoroughly explored in this study, even though this issue can be an integral aspect of research efforts. Comprehensive reviews of legal issues in the field of child maltreatment have recently been published (see, for example, Myers, 1992), but such reviews focus primarily on legal issues associated with the treatment of child abuse cases within administrative agencies and the courts rather than research studies.
The questions noted above are not completely resolved in the following discussion, but the panel has identified areas in which further research may assist in their resolution.
Framework Of Analysis Ethical and legal issues that require consideration in formulating a research agenda for studies of child maltreatment fall within the following three categories:
| (1)
| The use of human subjects in research. Research with human subjects involves a well-documented set of ethical and legal issues, associated with many different types of scientific studies and investigations, including experimental, field, and clinical research, surveys, observational studies, and interviews (Levine, 1986; Sieber, 1992b; Stanley and Sieber, 1992).
| | (2)
| The use of children in research. The particularly vulnerable and dependent status of children places special obligations on research investigators, including greater protections for the child's privacy, confidentiality, and autonomy (Levine, 1991; Melton, 1982, 1983). The developmental status of the child requires special consideration, since differences in the maturity between a preschool child and an adolescent may alter their needs for protection (Thompson, 1992).
| | (3)
| Socially sensitive research. Scientists involved in child maltreatment studies must confront ethical and legal questions similar to those that arise on other socially sensitive topics that sometimes include criminal activities, such as research on substance abuse behaviors, prostitution, sexual behaviors, and violence.
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