The importance of moral sensitivity when including persons with dementia in qualitative research

Abstract

The aim of the article is to show the importance of moral sensitivity when including persons with dementia in research. The article presents and discusses ethical challenges encountered when a total of fifteen persons with dementia from two nursing homes and seven proxies were included in a qualitative study. The examples show that ethical challenges may be unpredictable. As researcher you participate with the informants in their daily life and in the interview situation, and it is not possible to plan all that may happen. A procedural proposal to an ethical committee at the beginning of a research project based on traditional research ethical principles may serve as a guideline, but it cannot solve all the ethical problems one faces during the research process. Our main argument in the article is therefore that, moral sensitivity is required in addition to the traditional research ethical principles throughout the whole process observing and interviewing the respondents.