Paper
Friday, July 23, 2004
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Friday, July 23, 2004
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM
This presentation is part of : Posters II
Scientific Misconduct: Perceptions of Research Coordinators
Marion E. Broome, RN, PhD, FAAN, Barbara Habermann, RN, PhD, and Erica Pryor, RN, PhD. School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

Research misconduct is a serious violation of the fundamental principle that scientists be truthful and fair in the conduct of research and the dissemination of research results (DHHS, 1995). As the scientific work of clinical trials has become increasingly complex a greater number of research workers are needed to implement the studies. One particularly important individual is the research coordinator (RC), who is responsible for coordination and implementation of the trial. RCs hold a unique position in clinical trials management and can be expected to be aware of and even influence the scientific We know very little about their values, beliefs, practices and experiences related to scientific integrity and misconduct (SM). The purpose of this on-going study is to conduct a national survey of clinical research coordinators in order to describe a) their beliefs and values about scientific misconduct, b) their perceptions of factors in their institution that could influence scientific misconduct, c) their estimation of the prevalence of specific types of misconduct in their environment, d) their awareness of actual misconduct that has occurred, e) their beliefs about how they would report an instance of scientific misconduct, and f) their perceptions of behavioral influences on scientific misconduct. In addition, RCs who are aware of an actual incident of SM will respond to 12 open-ended questions at the end of the SMQ-R and describe their experiences. The SMQ-R will be sent to a random selection of 3,500 research coordinators from two mailing lists obtained from the Association of Clinical Research Professionals and the Center for Clinical Research Practice, as well as a network of RCs in private practice. Both quantitative and qualitative analytical procedures will be used to analyze data and provide a comprehensive picture of the perceptions, beliefs and actual experiences of research coordinators related to scientific misconduct.

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Sigma Theta Tau International
July 22-24, 2004