Duty to Warn and Duty to Report
When might our research trigger a legal or ethical duty to report the potential for participant self-harm or harm to others, and what are our protocols for determining whether in individual instances we have such a duty?
1. Has everyone in our research lab received sufficient training to know when to flag data or results as requiring follow up review by a supervisor?
2. Will our analytic methods allow us to identify the precursors to dangerous or illegal behavior, to oneself or to others, and if so, at which point will we intervene to protect the research participant or a third party?
3. Have we updated our lab’s standard suicidality standard operating procedure (SOP) to be consistent with the novel data acquisition and analysis techniques we are using in our study?
4. Do we have a protocol for responding to legally mandated reporting if our data uncovers child pornography, restraining order violations, and so on?