ETHICAL ASPECTS OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH WITH MENTALLY-ILL PEOPLE

Given the dramatic rise in the frequency of nursing research that invo lves eliciting personal information, one would expect that attempts to maintain the balance between the aspirations of researchers and the n eeds and rights of patients would lead to extensive discussion of the ethical issues arising. However, they have received little attention i n the literature. This paper outlines and discusses some of the issues associated with qualitative research. The discussion converges on the specific case of phenomenological research, which involves the invasi on of participants' personal worlds, and draws attention to some of th e ethical issues that arise when the participants are psychiatric pati ents.