METHODS: This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important).
RESULTS: Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 (85.1%) were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be 'moderately important' to 'very important' for their decision making (mean score, ranging from 3.58 to 4.47). Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF (mean score = 4.47, 4.47, and 4.45, respectively).
CONCLUSIONS: Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among year 1 to year 5 medical students in a private medical university. A self-administered questionnaire was used with the 3 major domains of professionalism and ethics i.e. discipline plagiarism and cheating.
RESULTS: A total of 464 respondents responded to the survey and they included medical students from year 1 and year 2 (pre-clinical) and years 3-5 (clinical years). Majority of the students, 275 (59.2%) answered that they had not seen any form of unethical behavior among other students. The females seem to have a larger number 172(63%) among the same gender compared to the males. Majority 352 (75%) of them had not heard of the 'Code of Professional Conduct by the Malaysian Medical Council'. About fifty three (53.1%) of the students answered that the training was sufficient.
CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that the perception of unethical behavior was 58.8% in the 1st year (pre-clinical) and it increased to 65.2% in the 5th year (clinical). The 3 main discipline issues were students do not show interest in class (mean 2.9/4), they are rude to other students (mean 2.8/4) and talking during class (mean 2.6/4). Despite the existence of unethical behavior among the students majority of them (71.7%) claimed that they had adequate training in ethics and professionalism. It is proposed that not only the teaching of ethics and professionalism be reviewed but an assessment strategy be introduced to strengthen the importance of professionalism and ethics.
Methods: A multi-center cross sectional study was conducted for a month in out-patient wards of hospitals in Khobar, Dammam, Makkah, and Madinah, Saudi Arabia. Patients were randomly selected from a registered patient pools at hospitals and the item-subject ratio was kept at 1:20. The tool was assessed for factorial, construct, convergent, known group and predictive validities as well as, reliability and internal consistency of scale were also evaluated. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were also evaluated. Data were analyzed using SPSS v24 and MedCalc v19.2. The study was approved by concerned ethics committees (IRB-129-25/6/1439) and (IRB-2019-05-002).
Results: A total of 282 responses were received. The values for normed fit index (NFI), comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker Lewis index (TLI) and incremental fit index (IFI) were 0.960, 0.979, 0.954 and 0.980. All values were >0.95. The value for root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was 0.059, i.e., <0.06. Hence, factorial validity was established. The average factor loading of the scale was 0.725, i.e., >0.7, that established convergent validity. Known group validity was established by obtaining significant p-value <0.05, for the associations based on hypotheses. Cronbach's α was 0.865, i.e., >0.7. Predictive validity was established by evaluating odds ratios (OR) of demographic factors with adherence score using logistic regression. Sensitivity was 78.16%, specificity was 76.85% and, accuracy of the tool was 77.66%, i.e., >70%.
Conclusion: The Arabic version of GMAS achieved all required statistical parameters and was validated in Saudi patients with chronic diseases.