Awareness About Ethics Committee Amongst the Medical Teachers in a Medical College

Introduction: The Ethics Committees (EC) are established to safeguard the safety and rights of the subjects participating in a research study. No formal training about Ethics Committee is given to the medical students in undergraduate and post graduate education as a part of curriculum.

Aims And Objectives: To study the awareness about the composition and functioning of EC amongst the medical teachers.

Methodology: A prevalidated questionnaire was given to the medical teachers who consented to participate in the study, fill up the questionnaire immediately and return it. The questions consisted of knowledge about the composition of the EC and its functioning in general.

Results: Ninety two (51%) belonged to non-clinical branches; 88(49%) were clinicians. Forty (22%) had undergone ICH-GCP training (27 belong to clinical and 13 non-clinical branches). Forty four point four percent were well informed about the composition of EC in general. The most common wrong answer was "Dean" is the Chairperson of EC.

Conclusions: As the years of experience as Faculty in Nair increased, the knowledge about the composition of EC's in general increased but the information about functioning of IEC did not improve significantly. The awareness about EC was significantly higher amongst the PG teachers.