Clinical Ethics in HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Research

Abstract

Ethics refers to standards of right and wrong behavior, as well as to the systematic study of the norms, values, and principles that underlie those standards. Morals and ethics are often used as synonyms, although ethics typically refers to a set of social or professional norms while morals or morality are more personal. Ethics and law are also closely related; law is the codification of ethical standards and legal requirements often provide a practical framework for ethical decision-making. In contemporary health care, ethics is multidisciplinary, drawing on the professional standards and experiences of medicine, public health, nursing, the behavioral sciences, social work, chaplaincy, health education, and law, as well as ethical theories of philosophy and theology. The ethics of clinical care and biomedical research are typically grounded in the principles of (1) beneficence, acting in the best interest of one’s patient or research participant, and its corollary, nonmaleficence.