Questioning risk and vulnerability in end-of-life research

This essay provides a critical assessment on the range of common prejudices and pitfalls that should be considered when first developing research into death, dying, and end-of-life care as well as conducting ethical assessments of this work. Risk and vulnerability are commonly exaggerated or distorted in these fields. The reasons for this are discussed in terms of an unchecked problem-based gaze, a lack of recognition of the pluralism within populations facing death, decontextualization biases, commonly occurring psychological reductionism, and a lack of experience of first researchers and ethics committees addressing these kinds of proposals. The original contribution of this paper is that these factors are summarised together, with limitations noted, and general recommendations suggested for future work.