Ethics in Care Research Theme
Our vision for research in the ethics in care research theme is to illuminate the complexity and significance of ethical care and to identify and develop evidence-based interventions that promote sustainable ethical practices and respond effectively to unethical practice.
Research and educational focus
Ethics and professionalism are integral to health and social care practices. Care-givers and care leaders must respond constructively and effectively to the everyday ethical issues that arise in their practice.
Practitioners’ responses include making ethical decisions relating to actions and omissions. Practitioners are accountable for those decisions and draw on ethics to provide the language and arguments to underpin their decision-making. Everyday decision-making in health and social care relates to, for example, the allocation of scarce resources, truth-telling, confidentiality, moral distress, the consent process, raising concerns and the promotion of person-centred care.
Research areas
- Cross-cultural perspectives on roles, responsibilities and the future of care of older adults
- Values-based end of life care for young people with learning disabilities
- Understanding and responding to fitness to practise complaints against paramedics and social workers
- Researching ethics education interventions that promote ethics in social care
- Truth-telling in fitness to practise complaints
- Professionalism in paramedic practice.
Research methodologies
- Philosophical analysis of ethical issues, concepts and theories
- Delphi process – iterative process to reach consensus on complex ethical questions
- Qualitative research – grounded theory and ethnography
- Quantitative research – involving measurements of aspects of the moral life
- Mixed methods
- Systematic reviews.
Research projects
Start date:
End date:
PhD studies
- Olivia Luijnenburg: ETHoS Project: The Ethical Implications of 'Spirituality' in Residential Care for Older People (Supervisors: Dr Ann Gallagher, Dr Freda Mold)
- Ali Haddad: Perceptions of Patients, Doctors and Nurses of being the “Good Nurse” in Kuwait: A Grounded Theory (Supervisors: Prof Ann Gallagher, Dr Anna Cox)
- Hanna Groothuizen: Values in students of adult nursing following exposure to the clinical environment (Supervisors: Dr Alison Callwood, Dr Debbie Cooke, Professor Ann Gallagher)
- Wendy Grosvenor - Successful completion in May 2019: Student nurse perspectives on the impact of longitudinal home visits to people with dementia and their carers. Whole Sight: New Ways of Seeing (Supervisors: Prof Ann Gallagher, Prof Sube Banerjee).
Researchers
Professor Ann Gallagher
Research theme lead; Professor of Ethics and Care
Dr Anna Cox
Post Doctoral Research Fellow
The International Care Ethics (ICE) Observatory
The ICE Observatory promotes international research, development of ethics teaching, cross-cultural discussion and understanding, and ethical inter-professional and inter-agency co-operation.