Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Over the last few decades a huge body of evidence has shown that financial conflicts of interest can jeopardise the integrity of health research and the objectivity of education provided to medical students. These concerns have led some Universities to implement institutional policies to regulate their interactions with commercial entities in order to protect the integrity of the research and educational process. However, what such policies include and what has been achieved by them has not been studied in a systematic fashion.
Objective: To identify, synthesise and analyse studies on Universities’ conflict of interest policies (COI) for health research and education. In particular, we will address the following research questions:
(1) What proportion of universities has an explicit COI policy for health research and education?
(2) For the Universities with COI policies:
a. What are the provisions included in COI policies and to whom do they apply?
b. How are COI policies perceived by members of the University communities (e.g. students, academics, and University managers and administrators)?
c. How are COI policies enforced?
d. What impact has the COI policies had on research outputs and on the educational quality and content?
Methods: We will conduct a scoping review. We will search MEDLINE, Scopus, and Embase (from inception to March 2020) for all primary research on Universities’ conflict of interest policies to regulate the interaction between commercial entities and the research and educational environment. We will search the reference lists of included studies and contact experts to identify additional studies. There will be no restrictions on study design or language.
We will include studies containing empirical data (qualitative or quantitative) on prevalence of academic COI policies, content, scope and impact of COI policies, and on students’, researchers’ and administrators’ attitudes towards COI policies.
Two authors will independently assess full texts of potentially eligible studies and extract data. Studies will be grouped thematically by themes and outcomes reported. These groups will not be identified a priori, but will be created inductively until all studies are accounted for. All authors will participate in identifying and refining these groups and themes.
Results: 8667 records have been identified through the literature search and are currently being screened for inclusion. Results will be available for the 27th Cochrane Colloquium in 2020.
Conclusions: Will be available for the 27th Cochrane Colloquium in 2020.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: No patients will be involved in planning and conducting this scoping review.
Objective: To identify, synthesise and analyse studies on Universities’ conflict of interest policies (COI) for health research and education. In particular, we will address the following research questions:
(1) What proportion of universities has an explicit COI policy for health research and education?
(2) For the Universities with COI policies:
a. What are the provisions included in COI policies and to whom do they apply?
b. How are COI policies perceived by members of the University communities (e.g. students, academics, and University managers and administrators)?
c. How are COI policies enforced?
d. What impact has the COI policies had on research outputs and on the educational quality and content?
Methods: We will conduct a scoping review. We will search MEDLINE, Scopus, and Embase (from inception to March 2020) for all primary research on Universities’ conflict of interest policies to regulate the interaction between commercial entities and the research and educational environment. We will search the reference lists of included studies and contact experts to identify additional studies. There will be no restrictions on study design or language.
We will include studies containing empirical data (qualitative or quantitative) on prevalence of academic COI policies, content, scope and impact of COI policies, and on students’, researchers’ and administrators’ attitudes towards COI policies.
Two authors will independently assess full texts of potentially eligible studies and extract data. Studies will be grouped thematically by themes and outcomes reported. These groups will not be identified a priori, but will be created inductively until all studies are accounted for. All authors will participate in identifying and refining these groups and themes.
Results: 8667 records have been identified through the literature search and are currently being screened for inclusion. Results will be available for the 27th Cochrane Colloquium in 2020.
Conclusions: Will be available for the 27th Cochrane Colloquium in 2020.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: No patients will be involved in planning and conducting this scoping review.