Purpose: Ethics committee approval is necessary for research proposals to safeguard the dignity, rights, safety, well-being of all research participants. ECs have the responsibility of ensuring ethical compliance in conduct of the study.Whether EC is facilitating or making difficult the conduct of research is sometimes debated. Much has been published on the goals and elements of review by EC, however there are few studies showing perceptions of various stake holders about EC. This study was planned to assess the perception of investigators about EC at a tertiary care hospital.
Material and methods: A cross sectional, questionnaire based survey was conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Respondents were investigators involved in trials in this hospital. Data was expressed as counts and percentages.
Results: 100 % participants were aware about the registration of EC with DCGI. 53.8 % were correct about the primary role of EC. Around 90% participants were satisfied with decision making, protocol review, unbiased nature, maintenance of records, overall working of EC.42 % participants felt the need for separate scientific committee for protocol review.
Conclusion: The investigators of this institute are satisfied with the working of EC.