Publication:

Attitude of researchers towards ethics committee at a medical research institute in Coimbatore: a cross sectional study

Background The role of ethics committees has been well defined, but many researchers regard ethical review as a road block to research.

Methods To assess the attitude of the researchers towards the ethics committee, a cross sectional study was conducted among 80 researchers, which includes both faculty and undergraduate students at a medical research institute.

Results Our study shows that though most of the researchers agreed that ethics committee is mandatory, they felt that ethics committee review delays research projects, undermined the role of non-medical members in the committee, felt annoyed about the documentation and answering the full board queries and presentations.

Conclusions Study concludes that though the researchers have understood the critical role of ethics committee, they lack a positive attitude when it comes to the ethics committee functioning. Therefore, training should be conducted for researchers, which addresses these issues, so that the misunderstandings and conflicts are minimized.