Ethical Considerations

Risk means any possible harm or negative effect on participants beyond what they normally experience in daily life.

Ethics committees carefully weigh these risks against the benefits of the study. You must clearly explain any risks, how likely they are, and how you will reduce them (for example, by keeping participants anonymous).

Being honest about risks shows you respect your participants and strengthens your application.

Incidental findings are unexpected discoveries made during your research that are outside your study’s main focus.

These might be important for participants but can raise ethical or legal issues, like signs of abuse or illegal activities.

You need to explain how you will handle these.

"Benefit" refers to any possible positive effect of any data collection activity on the welfare of a participant over and above what would be expected from such a participant as a result of routine daily tasks.

Direct benefits are any positive effects for participants themselves (e.g. gaining new knowledge, accessing a service). Often, there may be no direct benefit and that’s acceptable if the study is well justified.

Societal or ethical value refers to how your research might help the wider community, improve policy, inform practice, or add to knowledge. Show how your study matters beyond just data collection, it should aim to solve or explore a real-world issue.

And remember that you must (and REC-H will) continuously evaluate the risks and benefits of the study.

If you plan to offer any reimbursement or incentives, clearly justify the reason and explain how the amount is calculated. Include a budget to show that compensation is reasonable and appropriate.

Monetary incentives should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Compensation is meant to cover costs or inconvenience, not to be seen as a benefit. It may improve participation rates and help ensure a representative sample.

Consider these points:

• Is the compensation fair and reasonable?
• What happens if participants do not complete the study?
• Are participants’ out-of-pocket expenses (e.g., travel, data costs) covered?
• For minors, who receives the compensation?
• Could excluding compensation affect participation or study outcomes?

Remember: Offering incentives automatically classifies the study as medium risk and requires additional institutional review.

Anonymity refers to a situation where the data collected contains no identifying information and cannot be linked to any individual participant or group. For instance, an anonymous online survey.

Confidentiality refers to the responsible handling of information that may include personal or identifying details. Where such information is collected, it must be kept secure and only accessed by authorised individuals.

Researchers must comply with applicable data protection laws, such as POPI regulations, and be able to clearly justify why any personal or identifying information is being collected. All data should be stored safely, and identifying details must not be disclosed in reports, publications, or presentations.

It is important to not make any participant identifiable. Never identify participants by name.

Wherever dealing with case studies focusing on a specific company, school, university, organisation, etc. (hereafter referring to all as organisation) avoid using the specific name of the organisation as it may result in a reputational risk to the researcher, university and/or the organisation if inaccurate results are reported or if the results shed an unflattering light on the organisation. This could, in extreme cases, result in legal action. In addition, anonymity would be breached if, for example, you use the name of the employer if there is possibly only a single participant per company.

In compliance with the National Department of Health (NDoH) ethics guidelines (2024), all researchers and their supervisors seeking ethical clearance must produce evidence of ethics training within the previous three years.

There are various online training courses available. These can be found on the REC-H Ethics Training webpage. 

Any ethics training course completed must include an assessment and certification indicating successful completion of the assessment component. Ethics training certificates must be refreshed every three years.

 

No, MEOS training shows you how to use MEOS, how to create an application, navigate through it and submit it for review. 

It does not cover the ethical principles that you need to consider in your research study. 

Please refer to the list of suitable courses on the REC-H Ethics Training webpage.