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JOURNAL REVIEWS  
Year : 2012  |  Volume : 2  |  Issue : 2  |  Page : 92-94
Ethics in the research field


Post Graduate Students, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology and Microbiology, Meenakshi Ammal Dental College and Hospital, Maduravoyal, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

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Date of Web Publication13-Nov-2013
 

How to cite this article:
Shanmugam A, Srinivasan B. Ethics in the research field. J Educ Ethics Dent 2012;2:92-4

How to cite this URL:
Shanmugam A, Srinivasan B. Ethics in the research field. J Educ Ethics Dent [serial online] 2012 [cited 2024 Mar 28];2:92-4. Available from: https://www.jeed.in/text.asp?2012/2/2/92/121259



   Ethical Issues in Biomedical Research and Publication Top


Naseem Shah

J Conservative Dentistry 2011;14:205-207

For the past 20 years in the field of dental sciences, the volume of scientific research and publication has been increased. Before 20 years, few international and national journals were present, but now it is substituted with many local journals and various publications sponsored by dental instruments and dental materials manufacturing companies. Recently, many of the dental colleges have started publishing their own journals to provide a platform to their own faculty and students to publish their work.

Ethical norms: The ethical norms include truthfulness, uprightness and management. Subjects involved in the research and personnel data should be maintained secretly. The source should be always acknowledged. Plagiarism means using the scientific materials without acknowledging the source. If your research topic is duplicated and published in different journals or in different languages, avoid the temptation for duplicate publication. The subjects and patients included in the research study should be protected, to minimize the risks. To protect the interests of the human subjects involved in the study, informed consent of the patient/guardian in the presence of witness is compulsory. Animal experiments should be carried only if necessary. During the experiment reduce the pain and suffering. Breaking the above mentioned ethical norms is called as "research misconduct." It includes "fabrication and plagiarism."

Research misconduct: Intentional deformation of the research process by making the text, theory or methods from another researcher's manuscript or publication or deformation of the research process in other ways. Some of the other deviations are, giving authorship to a person who has not contributed substantially to the research study. Exclusion of contributions by other researchers to increase their own research study importance. Using the inappropriate statistical methods to improve one's own research. Drifting from research protocol approved by the ethical committee. Omitting adverse effects in experiments of human subjects.

Responsibility of a reviewer: Reviewing involves assessing the (i) research quality and the scientific data (ii) demonstration clarity and argumentation (iii) ethical effectiveness of the study. It is not only the researcher but also the reviewer who should follow the ethical standards. The reviewer should not have personal ambush in reviewing an author submission or without reading, rejecting a manuscript for publication due to the fact that the author belongs to the particular country or religion.


   Ethical Problems in Academic Research Top


Judith Swazey, Melissa Anderson, Karen Louis

Issue of American Scientist Nov-Dec 1993; Volume 1

Ethical problems in academic research were divided into three categories used by the National Academy of Sciences. First category, science related misconduct, research practices includes "falsification, fabrication or plagiarism." "Second category includes research practices which are questionable, that has poor research records or giving honorary authorship." Third category, "other misconduct," includes worst behavior such as sexual harassment and violations of government rules and regulations. Improper use of research funds and misusing the prosperous information.

Reports of plagiarism by faculty and falsification by students are higher. Higher percentages of graduate students than faculty in all disciplines are believed to be involved in these types of misconduct. Both students and faculty are involved in the unethical and illegal behaviors; there are serious issues that are not directly research related. Racial, gender and ethnic discrimination and exposure to sexual harassment have been reported in sociology students. Misconduct among their colleagues has been reported by the faculty of civil engineering. Doctoral and chemistry students have identified falsification by the students of the same age. Among the research students-misconduct, plagiarism and data falsification occurs less frequently than other types of behavior by faculty and graduate students. These are the some unethical conducts experienced by students in academic research.


   Ethical Issues in Medical Research in the Developing World: A Report on a Meeting Organised by Foundation Merieux Top


Christophe Perry, Douglas Wassenaar, Shwan Gilchrist and Bernard Ivanoff

Developing World Bioethics 2008;Volume 9 issue 2:1471-8847

The main objective of this report is about the ethical issues, which are faced in research of developing countries are such as lack of epidemiological data for a disease, limited involvement of researchers, risks and benefits should be considered equally, strengthening capacity and transferring knowledge, respecting the right to confidentiality and good research practices, informed consent. Some of the needs of ethical committees include.

Training the ethical committee members: Proper training should be given for the ethical committee member by attending the work shop and theoretical tool for ethical evaluation.

Composition of ethical committee: The ethical committee should have clinicians, lawyers, social scientists and patient group and also other people such as philosophers, ethicists, economists, representatives of political or religious groups and nurses.

Funding of ethics committees: Proper funding should come from the sponsors and the sponsors should pay the administrator of the host institution.

Actions taken in consideration for ethical review are

  1. Coordination between the organisation and research ethics
  2. Following the guidelines of international research
  3. Funding for a long-term to promote the clinical trial
  4. Strengthening and building the technical assessment to promote network facilities.



   Ethics and Clinical Research Top


Hendry K Beecher

The New England Journal of Medicine 1966;274:???

Employing the human beings as an experimental subject involves several difficult problems primarily being the informed consent. Trouble arises when they are informed about the risk in the research resulting in serious consequences. There are several problems that can occur while planning or caring out a research such as urgency of the study, frequency of unethical procedure, problems for consent, death rates etc. Publications of the research also should be carried out ethically. Illegal data's should not be published. Thus the ethical approach in research has several components but two are of utmost importance. First being informed consent, as it is very important to inform the subject or guardian about all perspective about research including a clear mention about the possible hazards. Secondly there should be a more reliable safety provided by the presence of an intelligent and responsible investigator. The authors have discussed some of the unethical research studies such as an effective treatment withheld studies done for rheumatoid fever using penicillin, sulphonamides in streptococcal pharygintis, study done on therapy for TriA for hepatic dysfunction. Psychological based unethical study such as hematologic toxicity of chromphenol, cyclopropare anesthesia and cardiac arrhythmic study done for cerebral hemodynamic like starling's law study, studies done to understand the syndromes of impending hepatic coma in patients. To avoid the death of the patients in medical research, ethical guidelines of the research should be followed.


   Ethics in Qualitative Research Top


Angelica Orb, Laurel Eisenhauer, Dianne Wynaden

Journal of Nursing Scholarship 2000;33:1, 93-96

The authors have discussed about various ethical and unethical issues in qualitative research. Many unethical research experiments have been conducted in the 19 th century and thousands of people were killed all over the world. Protection of the human subjects involved in research is important. The harm caused to the human subjects can be minimized or prevented by following the ethics. The centre of interest of qualitative health research is on experiences of people in connection with health and illness.

Issues in qualitative research: Dresser (1998) discussed about protection of the participants. Ramos (1989) described the problems that may affect qualitative studies: The relationship between the participants and the researcher, elucidation of the data in researcher subject and the research design. The aim of qualitative studies is to explain the participant's points of view by conducting various interviews and observations. Patton (1990) recommended that the purpose of the study should be completely declared when doing participant observation. To protect the interests of the human subjects involved in the study, informed consent of the patient/guardian in the presence of witness is compulsory. The research contract should explain the manner of the study and how it will be carried out.

Ethical principles: Several authors (Dresser, 1998; Kvale, 1996; Munhall, 1988; Raudonis, 1992) have stated that the protection of human rights is a law in health-care research. The human subjects involved in the research study should be respected. Human subjects should be explained how the results will be published. The principle of justice refers to equitable and unbiased. Justice in qualitative research is explained by acknowledging the existence susceptible to physical or emotional injury of the human subjects and their benefaction to the research study.


   Knowledge, Awareness and Attitudes about Research Ethics among Dental Faculty in the Middle East: A Pilot Study Top


Hadir F El-Dessouky, Amr M. Abdel-Aziz, Chadi Ibrahim, Malini Moni, Reham Abdul Fadl and Henry Silverman

International Journal of Dentistry 2011;Article ID 694759, 13 pages

Medical research is on the rise in developing countries and thus research has to be under the guidance of fundamental ethical principles. However many of the developing countries are unaware of research regulations and ethic review systems and most of them including the middle-east countries not able to obtaining the ethical clearance prior to research. This is due to lack of knowledge about ethical committee and lack of training in research ethics.

This is a cross sectional study among faculty member such as junior faculty, mid-level faculty and professors. Data collection is done with the help of questionnaires and statically analysis is done and the result showed the decrease in the education of the ethical issue on the research side and mid-level faculty have been received more knowledge about ethics than the other faculty. Results were revealed that on the whole all were receptive about the need and development of research ethics committee and there was a wide acceptance toward learning. Thus, proper training and well-organized educational initiatives can improve the knowledge on research ethic committee.

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Correspondence Address:
Aravindraj Shanmugam
Post Graduate Students, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology and Microbiology, Meenakshi Ammal Dental College and Hospital, Maduravoyal, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
India
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Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


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