Knowledge, Awareness and Attitudes About Research Ethics among Faculty and Post Graduate Students of the Medical & Dental Professionals in Professional Institutions

Abstract

Introduction: The research ethics plays a very vital role in the collection, analysis, reporting andpublication of details about research subjects, in particular active acceptance of participant’s right to privacy,confidentiality and the informed consent of the participant.Aims: To assess the Knowledge, awareness and attitudes about research ethics among the faculty andstudents of medical and dental colleges and the requirement for a regular teaching about research ethicsamong the faculty and students of medical and dental colleges.Materials and Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted by assessing the responses to 39 selectedbasic questions regarding Knowledge, awareness and attitudes about research ethics among a total of415 faculty members and post graduate students of the medical and dental institutions in Mysore city ofKarnataka state. The online questionnaire was created by using Google forms. The questionnaire was madeinto 5 categories. Chi-square tests was used to determine, in bivariate analyses, the association of each of theindependent variables. The students t-test was done to assess the respondents scores on the 5-point Likertscale ranging from 1 to 5. The average of their scores were compared among the various variable like theirspecialty and academic position by using the ANOVA test.Results: A total of 415 responses were obtained from the participants of the study. The response tabulatedunder various sections clearly showed deficiency in the understanding of research ethics. The P value waskept at 0.05 for this study.Conclusion: The participants of the questionnaire survey showed that the institutional ethics committeeswould be very useful for promoting health research and are imperative for appraisal of the health researchprojects. The requirement for a regular teaching about research ethics among the faculty and students ofmedical and dental colleges is very important. Further study in this area is very much needed.