Human Rights & Ethics

Few areas of modern medicine deal with people whose roles are more stigmatized than people with mental illness. We seek to identify ways to facilitate services for people with mental illness that respect their dignity and human rights.

Our work is very diverse ranging from efforts to improve informed consent to assuring that IRBs protect individuals with mental illness in research. We are also interested in reducing therapeutic misconception among research subjects in prisons and among the general population. We have studied coercion in psychiatric admissions and collaborated with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health in the effort to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint.

We are interested in:

• Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of IRB reviews of psychiatric and other research protocols
• Developing measures of therapeutic misconception and perceived coercion that can be used in diverse mental health contexts
• Assessing how research subjects assess risk and benefit when they consent to participate in research
• Providing a stronger voice for consumers in mental health research design and implementation

Title: Self Perceptions of Risk for Patients with Co-Occurring Disorders
Dates: 5/1/2011 - 12/31/2014
Funder: National Institute of Mental Health
Funding: $75,375
PI: Jennifer Skeem, Ph.D.
CMHSR Key Personnel: Charles Lidz, Ph.D. (Co-I)
 

Title: Investigators & IACUCs: Integrity in Animal Research
Dates: 12/1/2010 - 6/30/2013
Funder: National Institutes of Health
Funding: $452,375
PI: Charles Lidz, Ph.D.
CMHSR Key Personnel: Jonathan Clayfield, M.A., Richard Rondeau, M.A.