Knowledge, Awareness, Attitudes, and Practices towards Research Ethics and Research Ethics Committees among Myanmar Post-graduate Students

Abstract

Health research has increased during the last decade, which has enhanced the importance of research ethics. However, little is known regarding the knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and practices of investigators in Myanmar. To assess awareness, knowledge, and attitudes of postgraduates regarding research ethics and research ethics committees (RECs) and their informed consent practices and to determine the association between their responses and certain independent factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study using a questionnaire that was distributed to a convenience sample of postgraduates at the Defence Services Medical Academy in Myanmar. We used descriptive, t test, and chi-square statistics to analyze the data. Significance was set at p < 0.05. We obtained surveys from 204 participants, which included 177 MSc and 27 PhDs of whom 63.6% had performed research and 86.5% had prior ethics training. Regarding awareness, 92.2% were aware of an REC at their academy, but only 47.1% were "fully aware" of the functions of an REC and only 52.9% stated they were familiar with ethical principles that govern human subject research. More than 90% thought that research involving human subjects should be submitted to an REC and that postgraduates should have training on research ethics. However, several of their attitudes were sub-optimal; for example, 20.2% said that informed consent is only necessary from the community leader of a village rather than from the individual, 32.8% agreed it is acceptable to fabricate research data, and 33.0% believed that ethical review of research should be restricted to international collaborative research. Calculated mean total attitude scores were statistically significantly higher in postgraduates with PhDs compared with those with MSc and higher in those with knowledge of research ethics principles compared with those lacking such knowledge. Significant gaps exist among postgraduates regarding their knowledge, awareness, and attitudes regarding research ethics and RECs. We recommend that postgraduates receive further training in research ethics to ensure the ethical conduct of research. Further studies should be performed to determine the generalizability of our findings to other institutions in Myanmar.

A Taxonomy for Research Integrity Training: Design, Conduct, and Improvements in Research Integrity Courses

“…Single studies on the efficacy and effectiveness of RI training show that training is not or only mildly effective, and some training fails to support intended training effects (e.g. Antes et al, 2010;Stephens et al, 2021;Than et al, 2020;Tarboush et al, 2020). Furthermore, projects like VIRT2UE, Integrity and Path2Integrity show that RI training objectives can differ while sharing the same ambitions regarding training effects.…”

Ethical human participant research in Central Asia: a quantitative analysis of attitudes and practices among social science researchers based in the region

“…Most importantly, local Central Asian researchers who are unfamiliar with internationally accepted standards of research ethics may cause psychological or other types of harm to the well-being of research participants. Additionally, local scholars may lack an understanding of international expectations for ethical human participant research which may decrease researchers' opportunities for publication in high-ranking international academic journals, presentation at international conferences, and access to international research funding (Than et al, 2020). As a result of this and other factors, local Central Asian researchers tend to be underrepresented in the global research production, a fact leading to a limited Central Asian perspective on many social issues in the world.…”

“…Previous studies that examined issues of implementing ethical regulations in research involving humans in developing research contexts (Azakir et al, 2020; El-Dessouky et al, 2011; Kandeel et al, 2011; Than et al, 2020; Torabi et al, 2021) also explored associations between researchers’ awareness of and attitudes toward research ethics and RECs and a number of baseline demographic and socio-economic characteristics (e.g. gender, prior research ethics training, research experience).…”

A multi-dimensional learning strategy to foster research integrity

“…Although various trainings have been developed over the past decades (Abdi et al, 2021a; Pizzolato et al, 2020), studies on their effectiveness provides contrasting opinions. While some of them show little or no impact (Abdi et al, 2021b; Marusic et al, 2016; Than et al, 2020), some others provide encouraging results (Katsarov et al, 2022; Todd et al, 2017; Watts et al, 2016). Assessing the efficacy of this typology of training is challenging due to the fact that RI practices can be defined as a mixture of knowledge, skills, the right attitude and responsible behaviour of researchers.…”