Research in disaster settings: a systematic qualitative review of ethical guidelines

Background Conducting research during or in the aftermath of disasters poses many specific practical and ethical challenges. This is particularly the case with research involving human subjects. The extraordinary circumstances of research conducted in disaster settings require appropriate regulations to ensure the protection of human participants. The goal of this study is to systematically and qualitatively review the existing ethical guidelines for disaster research by using the constant comparative method (CCM). Methods We performed a systematic qualitative review of disaster research ethics guidelines to collect and compare existing regulations. Guidelines were identified by a three-tie…