Evaluation of Awareness and Perception Regarding Conflict of Interest in Research Among the Postgraduate Students in a Tertiary Care Center

Background and Objectives: Conflict of interest (COI) exists when a set of circumstances creates a risk that a secondary interest will unduly influence professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest. This knowledge regarding ethics and rights is given to postgraduate students in their first year of residency through various training programs. In this training, one of the concepts taught is COI. There is no available literature regarding awareness of COI among postgraduate students who are going to be future researchers; hence we decided to conduct this study. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional, observational, single-center, questionnaire-based Study. The validated questionnaire was administered to the postgraduate students after obtaining their written informed consent. These questions were designed based on four domains: Awareness, perception, case scenarios, and application of COI. The responses were recorded as Yes/No & presented in descriptive statistics. Results: The mean age of the participants was 28.67 years with a standard deviation (SD) of 1.92. Sixty-one percent of were female. More than 85% of postgraduate residents have an awareness of COI. Also, 70% of participants felt that increased protocol deviations and 91% reported research study outcomes are likely to be positive when there is COI in the study. Ninety-three percent of participants thought that education regarding COI was necessary. Conclusion: The majority of postgraduate students had an awareness of COI. Postgraduate students perceived that the results of the study involving COI may not be credible, and formal education and training are required in this area.