What is it about?
Participants who took part in death/dying/bereavement research who wanted their real names used in the research, rather than being anonymized, as per usual research ethics requirements.
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Why is it important?
This was a surprising finding, as it tends to be assumed that participants in sensitive research will want to be anonymized. However bereaved participants have unique reasons for wanting their real names, and the names of their dead loved ones used in the write up of research they take part in.
Perspectives
This article is written from my Master's thesis, which I undertook in 2014. I did not intend to investigate this particular aspect of research ethics as pertaining to thanatology (death and dying) research, but my first participant raised the issue during the informed consent focus. Her fifteen year old daughter Emma had died by suicide, and she wanted the memory of Emma to live on where ever possible. Thus I felt it was important to investigate this aspect of the research ethics process further.
Ms Bonnie J Scarth
Universityof Otago
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Bereaved participants’ reasons for wanting their real names used in thanatology research, Research Ethics, April 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1747016115599569.
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