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Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Photographs are commonly taken of children in medical and research contexts. With the increased availability of photographs through the internet, it is increasingly important to consider their potential for negative consequences and the nature of any consent obtained. In this research we...

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Autores principales: Devakumar, Delan, Brotherton, Helen, Halbert, Jay, Clarke, Andrew, Prost, Audrey, Hall, Jennifer
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3750443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23835013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-14-27
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author Devakumar, Delan
Brotherton, Helen
Halbert, Jay
Clarke, Andrew
Prost, Audrey
Hall, Jennifer
author_facet Devakumar, Delan
Brotherton, Helen
Halbert, Jay
Clarke, Andrew
Prost, Audrey
Hall, Jennifer
author_sort Devakumar, Delan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Photographs are commonly taken of children in medical and research contexts. With the increased availability of photographs through the internet, it is increasingly important to consider their potential for negative consequences and the nature of any consent obtained. In this research we explore the issues around photography in low-resource settings, in particular concentrating on the challenges in gaining informed consent. METHODS: Exploratory qualitative study using focus group discussions involving medical doctors and researchers who are currently working or have recently worked in low-resource settings with children. RESULTS: Photographs are a valuable resource but photographers need to be mindful of how they are taken and used. Informed consent is needed when taking photographs but there were a number of problems in doing this, such as different concepts of consent, language and literacy barriers and the ability to understand the information. There was no consensus as to the form that the consent should take. Participants thought that while written consent was preferable, the mode of consent should depend on the situation. CONCLUSIONS: Photographs are a valuable but potentially harmful resource, thus informed consent is required but its form may vary by context. We suggest applying a hierarchy of dissemination to gauge how detailed the informed consent should be. Care should be taken not to cause harm, with the rights of the child being the paramount consideration.
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spelling pubmed-37504432013-08-24 Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study Devakumar, Delan Brotherton, Helen Halbert, Jay Clarke, Andrew Prost, Audrey Hall, Jennifer BMC Med Ethics Research Article BACKGROUND: Photographs are commonly taken of children in medical and research contexts. With the increased availability of photographs through the internet, it is increasingly important to consider their potential for negative consequences and the nature of any consent obtained. In this research we explore the issues around photography in low-resource settings, in particular concentrating on the challenges in gaining informed consent. METHODS: Exploratory qualitative study using focus group discussions involving medical doctors and researchers who are currently working or have recently worked in low-resource settings with children. RESULTS: Photographs are a valuable resource but photographers need to be mindful of how they are taken and used. Informed consent is needed when taking photographs but there were a number of problems in doing this, such as different concepts of consent, language and literacy barriers and the ability to understand the information. There was no consensus as to the form that the consent should take. Participants thought that while written consent was preferable, the mode of consent should depend on the situation. CONCLUSIONS: Photographs are a valuable but potentially harmful resource, thus informed consent is required but its form may vary by context. We suggest applying a hierarchy of dissemination to gauge how detailed the informed consent should be. Care should be taken not to cause harm, with the rights of the child being the paramount consideration. BioMed Central 2013-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3750443/ /pubmed/23835013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-14-27 Text en Copyright © 2013 Devakumar et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Devakumar, Delan
Brotherton, Helen
Halbert, Jay
Clarke, Andrew
Prost, Audrey
Hall, Jennifer
Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study
title Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study
title_full Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study
title_fullStr Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study
title_short Taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study
title_sort taking ethical photos of children for medical and research purposes in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3750443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23835013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-14-27
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