Editorial Ethics in Research

We don’t have exact data as how many researches are going in Nepal nor we know whether they have abided by the ethics in research or not. The clinical trials show that four researches are recruiting participants and 13 have been completed when searched for the term Nepal. 1 There has been lots of research going on lately in the country partly due to increasing awareness and/or for academic achievement. Since the study is done under pressure, it bounds to violate the ethics. The culture of research and reporting has not been developed yet. But we believe this is the right time to sensitize all the researchers and author about ethics in research. Ethics or morals are neither about what is right or wrong, legal or illegal nor like Ten Commandments. An action may be legal but unethical or illegal but ethical. When most people think of ethics (or morals), they think of rules for distinguishing between right and wrong, such as the Golden Rule, a code of professional conduct like the Hippocratic Oath or a wise aphorisms like the sayings of Confucius. This is the most common way of defining “ethics”: ethics are norms for conduct that distinguish between or acceptable and unacceptable behavior. 2 Most people learn ethical norms at home, at school, in church, or in other social settings. Although most people acquire their sense of right and wrong during childhood, moral development occurs throughout life and human beings pass through different stages of growth as they mature. Ethical norms are so ubiquitous that one might be tempted to regard them as simple commonsense. 2 Most societies also have legal rules that govern behavior, but ethical norms tend to be broader and more informal than laws. Although most societies use laws to enforce widely accepted moral standards and ethical and legal rules use similar concepts, it is important to remember that ethics and law are not the same. We can also use ethical concepts and principles to criticize, evaluate, propose, or interpret laws. Indeed, in the last century, many social reformers urged citizens to disobey laws in order to protest what they regarded as immoral or unjust laws.