Empirical bioethics approaches: a simplified typology based on the scientific literature

Empirical bioethics addresses bio-ethical issues through field studies using a variety of research approaches that are not always well known, or well understood, by health professionals, including some bioethicists, particularly non-empiricist bioethicists, clinical ethicists and/or bioethics students, who may nevertheless be involved in such studies as investigators. Consequently, we decided to develop a simplified typology of empirical bioethics approaches to make them easier to understand and use. This work is based solely on scientific literature. Ultimately, we identified eight main research approaches (n = 8), which may be combined sequentially in various ways: (1) ‘quantitative approaches’, (2) ‘qualitative approaches’, (3) the ‘descriptive approach’, (4) the ‘normative approach’, (5) ‘dialogical approaches’, (6) ‘consultative approaches’, (7) the ‘macro-bio-ethical approach’, and (8) the ‘micro-bio-ethical approach’.