The understanding of research ethics at health sciences schools in Jordan: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Research ethics is required for high-quality research that positively influences society. There is limited understanding of research ethics in Middle Eastern countries including Jordan. Here, we aim to investigate the level of understanding of research ethics principles among health sciences faculty members in Jordan. Methods This is a cross sectional study where faculty members from the University of Jordan were surveyed for their knowledge and, attitude of research ethics principles. The study was conducted in the period between July 2016 to July 2017 using a customized-design questionnaire involving demographic data and participants’ contributions toward research, and assessment of participants’ knowledge, belief and attitude towards research ethics. Different question-formats have been used including multiple-choice, yes or no, and a four point Likert-type questions. Obtained responses were tabulated according to gender, academic-rank, and knowledge about research ethics principles. Results The study had a response rate of 51%. Among the 137 participants of this study, most (96%) were involved in human and animal research, yet, only 2/3 had prior training in research ethics. Moreover, 91% believed that investigators should have training in research ethics and 87% believed that there should be a mandatory postgraduate course on that. The average correct scores for correct understanding of researchers towards research ethics was 62%. Yet, there were some misconceptions about the major ethical principles as only 43% identified them correctly. Additionally, the role of research ethics committees was not well understood by most of the respondents. Conclusions Although there is acceptable knowledge about research ethics, discrepancies in understanding in research ethics principles seems to exist. There is a large support for further training in responsible conduct of research by faculty in health sciences in Jordan. Thus, such training should be required by universities to address this knowledge gap in order to improve research quality and its impact on society.

Knowledge and attitude toward ethics committee and ethical research practice among researchers of three sectors: An institutional study in Kuwait

“…In our survey, among the trained respondents, 97.7% were aware of the role and functions of the ethics committee, similar results were reported in Jordan and India [21,22]. By contrast, a study from Jordan by Tarboush et al reported that the role of the ethics committee was not well understood by most of their study participants [19]. Prior ethics training and years of experience had direct linear relationship with the number of research projects being handled in our survey.…”

“…The percentage of trained respondents was found to be 78.2% in our survey whereas, other studies reported percentage of ethics trained respondents ranging from nil to 36.8% to 53.7% to 64%. [18][19][20][21]. Interestingly in our survey, overall, no association was found between training and knowledge on ethics committee and its function.…”

Graduate students reported practices regarding the issue of informed consent and maintaining of data confidentiality in a developing country

“…This indicates a limited appreciation of students to the absolute requirement of proper informed consent and data confidentiality practices. Moreover, this limited application of proper informed consent processes is in concordance with the fact that graduate students, and even other medical researchers, in developing countries, usually have limited training in research ethics and protection of human subjects during research studies or continuous development/education programs [ 20 , 21 , 22 ]. For example, a study that was conducted in Jordan showed that resident doctors had minimal knowledge of major ethical guidelines such as the Declaration of Helsinki and Belmont Report [ 20 ].…”

Assessment of research ethics education offerings of pharmacy master programs in an Arab nation relative to top programs worldwide: A qualitative content analysis

“…For that reason, integrating RE education into postgraduate pharmacy programs in Jordan is highly encouraged. In fact, there is a support for this type of training even among health sciences faculty members in Jordan [ 30 ]. In this case, pharmacy graduate programs in JUST and JU could serve as a role model in that they contain RE educational material integrated into one or more of their core courses, although integrating a rather “dedicated” RE course into those master programs is highly encouraged, as it was previously reported that RCR programs conducted separately from the standard curricula were more effective than those imbedded into existing modules [ 31 ].…”