Which hat am I wearing today? Practising midwives doing research

Ryan, K., Brown, S., Wilkins, C., Taylor, A., Arnold, R., Angell, C. and van Teijlingen, E. (2011) Which hat am I wearing today? Practising midwives doing research. Evidence Based Midwifery, 9 (1). pp. 4-8. ISSN 1479-4489

Abstract/Summary

Doing research and practising as a midwife at the same time can lead to ethical conflicts as the ethical codes for midwifery practice and those for conducting research are subtly different. We use five narrative case studies of midwife-researchers, who have struggled with ethical considerations doing research as a practising midwife, to distil some of the key conflict areas. The key issue was around multiple and conflicting roles including the ethical issues of confidentiality and trust. Potential ethical dilemmas seemed to be related to the amount of control the midwife-researcher had over the research process, especially data collection. We conclude that it is time to discuss the issues and consider how best to support midwife-researchers; we must trust the researcher to make the best possible ethical decisions as we trust the health professional to in practice; and ultimately ethics governing practice must be given priority.