Rethinking Benefits in Health Research, Reflections of an Ethics Committee

The principle of beneficence in health research implies the effort of researchers to minimize risk to participants and maximize benefits to participants and society, which could be considered an abstract definition. Therefore, the benefits are not easily conceived by researchers who fail to achieve their goal, which is to privilege the well-being of participants. The purpose of this work was to describe and discuss the theoretical elements that support the principle of beneficence so that their knowledge allows designing and granting adequate benefits to participants. The present document defines the principle of beneficence. It also analyzes the maximization of benefits, the distinctions between different classifications of benefits, and the differentiation from compensations or incentives. With all this information, researchers must do a critical deliberation to select adequate benefits for participants of their studies, considering the type of study, potential participants, probability of risk, among others. These benefits should not be understood as a charity that researchers grant to the participant; they should be conceived as any form of action in favor of the well-being of participants. Participants must always be considered as moral agents, responsible for deciding whether the benefits would outweigh the possible negative unintended consequences of a particular study. Finally, no risk should be taken if it is not commensurate or proportional to the benefit of the research study.