Effectiveness of Training Ethical Principles in Clinical Trials on the Awareness of Health Professionals

Abstract

Background: Adherence to ethical and legal principles in clinical trials leads to the improvement of the quality of patient treatment, reduction of complications caused by interventions, improvement of the scientific level of published articles, and increased generalizability of studies to the general population. Objectives: The present study evaluated the role of training in ethical principles on health professionals’ awareness status. Methods: This clinical trial included 50 health professionals from the Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran, in 2022. The status of awareness of applying ethical principles in clinical trials was assessed using a self-designed questionnaire, scoring from 0 to 10. Participants’ personal and educational data were recorded, and data were analyzed using SPSS version 26. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: The study involved health professionals in different fields with a mean age of 41.88 ± 12.58 years. Participants were predominantly female (46%), held PhD.s (40%), were nurses (30%), and faculty members (58%). Awareness scores significantly increased from 5.16 ± 1.57 pre-workshop to 8.62 ± 0.99 post-workshop (P < 0.001). Significant improvements were observed across age groups, genders, and most educational levels and medical specialties (P < 0.05), while no statistically significant association was observed between subgroups and awareness score (P > 0.05). Conclusions: The study demonstrated the effectiveness of the ethical principles workshop in enhancing awareness of research ethics principles among diverse healthcare professionals.