Strengthening ethics committees for health-related research in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review protocol

Thurtle, Valerie; Leather, Andrew; Wurie, Haja; Foday, Eddie; Samai, Mohamed; Parmar, Divya

doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-046546

Cited by 1 publication

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“…The scoping review protocol has been peer-reviewed and published. 28 We extended the time period to 18 February 2022; in the protocol, it was October 2020. Additionally, we included studies that examined international collaborations with SSA countries and multicountry studies if the findings were relevant to SSA.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Strengthening ethics committees for health-related research in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review

et al. 2022

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ObjectiveHealth-related research in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has grown over the years. However, concerns have been raised about the state of research ethics committees (RECs). This scoping review examines the literature on RECs for health-related research in SSA and identifies strategies that have been applied to strengthen the RECs. It focuses on three aspects of RECs: regulatory governance and leadership, administrative and financial capacity and technical capacity of members.DesignA scoping review of published literature, including grey literature, was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute approach.Data sourcesBioOne, CINAHL, Embase (via Ovid), Education Abstracts, Global Health, Google Scholar, Jstor, OpenEdition (French), Philosopher’s Index, PsycINFO, PubMed, Science Citation and Expanded Index (Web of Science), reference lists of included studies and specific grey literature sources.Eligibility criteriaWe included empirical studies on RECs for health-related research in SSA, covering topics on REC leadership and governance, administrative and financial capacity and the technical capacity of REC members. We included studies published between 01 January 2000 and 18 February 2022 and written in English, French, Portuguese or Swahili.Data extraction and synthesisTwo independent reviewers screened the records. Data were extracted by one reviewer and cross-checked by another. Owing to the heterogeneity of included studies, thematic analysis was used.ResultsWe included 54 studies. The findings show that most RECs in SSA work under significant administrative and financial constraints, with few opportunities for capacity building for committee members. This has an impact on the quality of reviews and the overall performance of RECs. Although most countries have national governance systems for RECs, they lack regulations on accountability, transparency and monitoring of RECs.ConclusionsThis review provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on RECs for health-related research in SSA and contributes to our understanding of how RECs can be strengthened.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The coding was done by one author (IC) and reviewed by another author (DP), and all authors contributed to identifying the subthemes. The scoping review protocol has been peer-reviewed and published 28. We extended the time period to 18 February 2022; in the protocol, it was October 2020.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%