3/13 – Important IRB Stuff

Sarah W -

This past week, I really only worked on my project for about two days because of spring break, but I still learned a lot!

 

During the two days I worked, I mostly focused on IRB. Last week, I told you I had a problem with logging in and thought there was never going to be a solution, but at last, I got a username and password thanks to my external advisor. I didn’t even have to complete the IRB thanks to my trusty partner Kei, who did all the work for me while I was focusing on formatting an email and adding the final touches to the survey. It is very important to do an IRB with any research involving human subjects, so I was still put in as a co-investigator on Kei’s IRB form.

 

The second day was more IRB, but this time we had a meeting about it instead of figuring it out alone. A lot of what I learned in the meeting was in the CITI training I had to do a few weeks ago, but there were still things I didn’t know and were interesting to learn about. The most important points were the types of IRBs and the key principles. Here are some notes:

 

Types of reviews

 

  1. Full board:
    • More than minimal risk to subjects 
    • Not covered under other review categories 
    • Example: Interventions involving physical or emotional discomfort

 2. Expedited:

    • Not greater than minimal risk to subjects
    • Fits one of the 9 categories
    • Example: collection of biospecimens by non-invasive means

 3. Exempt:

    • Less than minimal risk to subjects
    • Fits one of the 6 categories
    • Example: research with de-identified records; anonymous surveys

 

Key principles

 

  1. Respect for persons
    • Respect the autonomy of individuals
    • Protect individuals with diminished autonomy (prisoners, homeless, orphans, individuals with disabilities, children, pregnant women…)

2. Beneficence 

    • Do not harm 
    • Maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms
    • Consider both individual and social benefits

3. justice

    • Fair distribution of benefit and burdens of research 

 

The email formatting struggles continue, but I wont get into that.

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Comments:

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    sedona_o
    Hi Serra, I love your IRB summary! I know you said you wouldn't get into email formatting struggles, but I do have one question. What kinds of things did you have to consider while writing the contents of the email itself?
    March 17, 2024 at 1:38 pm -
      sarah_w
      When I was writing the email, the most important thing we had to focus on was to include all the information while making it short enough so that people read it. We did have to include that only people 18 or older could respond as a last minute thing because of the IRB.
      March 25, 2024 at 10:05 am -
    nathan_c
    Hey Sarah, what else were you up to besides working on your project? Also, email can be a struggle sometimes. I hope you got the formatting better!
    March 18, 2024 at 3:10 pm -
    kei_s
    Hi Sarah! Your IRB summary points are fantastic! I know you tried a lot of HTML coding to try and get the email to work, but alas it didn’t work out as planned. Did you enjoy getting to work with HTML? Would you do it again in the future? Thanks! - Kei
    March 18, 2024 at 6:30 pm -

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