Ethical and Legal Guidance for Mental Health Practitioners Who Wish to Conduct Research in a Private Practice Setting

Mental health practitioners, even when they have research training, rarely contribute to the scientific literature. One reason for this may be that they need help addressing the ethical and legal issues they encounter as they contemplate undertaking research in a clinical practice setting. To address that need, we offer several types of guidance for conducting research in a private practice setting in a way that meets high ethical and legal standards. We describe the situations in which ethical review of a research proposal by a federally registered institutional review board (IRB) is legally required, and identify alternate mechanisms that practitioners can use to obtain an ethical review when a formal IRB review is not required by law. We discuss legal and ethical requirements of conducting single-case studies in a practice setting. We provide a rationale, and free and inexpensive options, for obtaining a formal certificate of training in human subjects research. And we offer guidance for obtaining informed consent and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) authorization from research participants. We conclude with a brief discussion of other legal and professional issues to consider when conducting research in private practice.