The 2024 Declaration of Helsinki Revision: Relevance to Nursing Research

ABSTRACT

Background

The 2024 revision of the Declaration of Helsinki (DoH) marks a pivotal shift in biomedical research ethics, with significant implications for nursing research. This paper critically evaluates the Declaration's relevance to nursing practice, with particular attention to challenges in low-resource settings. Key updates emphasising global health equity, environmental sustainability, participant-centred consent and artificial intelligence (AI) governance are examined through nursing's ethical lenses of justice, beneficence and patient advocacy.

Methods

Using a multidimensional ethical framework grounded in Virtue Ethics, utilitarianism and phenomenology, the manuscript explores how nurses can ethically engage vulnerable populations, safeguard data privacy and advance inclusive, community-based research.

Results

It highlights gaps in the Declaration, particularly regarding algorithmic bias and digital consent and proposes practical strategies for nurse researchers, such as AI governance tools, dynamic consent models and context-sensitive sustainability practices.

Conclusions

Rather than treating ethics as an abstract principle, the paper grounds theory in real-world practice, offering case examples that reflect the lived constraints of nursing researchers in underfunded and culturally diverse environments. By aligning ethical ideals with operational realities, this work reinforces nursing's critical role in shaping equitable and ethically resilient research practices under the revised Declaration.