Survey of Conflict of Interest in the Clinical Research for IRB Members and Researchers

임상시험심사위원회 위원과 연구자를 대상으로 임상연구에서 이해상충에 대한 설문조사연구

Purpose: To obtain opinions from Korean Institutional Review Board (IRB) members' self-evaluation on ability to conduct fairness review of clinical trial protocol with presence of conflict of interest and from investigators and IRB members on financial conflict of interest through surveying. Methods: IRB members and researchers in 9 different hospitals were asked to answer survey questions via email. Results: Responders were 115 personnel (IRB Chair/vice 18, medical member 30, non-medical member 28, and researcher 39) from 9 centers. Compared to IRB medical members, IRB chair/vice respondents scored higher with statistically significance on 10 point scale (8.44±1.381 vs. 7.30±1.685, p=0.005) when asked to self-evaluate fairness reviewing a protocol proposed by an investigator from the same department and a protocol from the company that supports the scientific committee of responders. When reviewing a protocol proposed by a hospital director, non-medical members scored statistically significantly higher than medical-members (7.47±1.76 vs. 8.07±2.70, p=0.034). When asked about the limitation of labor fee for principal investigator on phase 3 Human clinical trials of the Investigational new drug, while the responses range was wide, 60% answered that labor cost of principal investigator should be less than 30% of total budget for clinical trials with a budget of 100 million won. 51.3% answered that there is no need to disclose the labor cost of the principal investigator in the consent form. Since every investigator can be influenced unconsciously by conflict of interest, the answer that 'responder agrees that there is need for management' was the most chosen answer (IRB member 61.8%, investigator 64.1%, multiple answers allowed). Conclusion: Considering scores on questions of fairness by IRB members were between 7.23-8.56 on scale of 0 to 10 point when IRB members were asked about reviewing a clinical trial protocol, it cannot be said with absolute certainty that there is no issue regarding fairness in the review process. Therefore, there should be more ways to safeguard fairness for these issues. There is a need that the disclosure amount of honorarium from sponsor should be lower than 100 million Korean won. Considering the results of the survey in which respondents expressed their thoughts, it is likely that more education on the concept of conflict of interest is needed.