A cross-sectional study on research practices among doctors in India

Introduction: When doctors assume the role of a researcher, then they have to play from both ends – many times, the enthusiasm of research might play with morality of a physician. The quality of research in India is not at par with most countries and it has a publication share of only 1.59%. Objectives: The objectives were to find out the research practices of doctors to identify loopholes in research and recommend rectifications. Materials and Methods: It is a cross-sectional study done with the help of an anonymous online pretested questionnaire. The questionnaire was randomly mailed from a mailing list to 500 doctors of different places and specialties and 100 of them filled the form and participated in the study. Results: Out of the 100 participants, 77 (77%) said that they had received some training or have attended some workshop on research methodology. More than one-fourth of the researchers agreed to modifying data to get desired results and 14% agreed to producing false data owing to the pressure by a supervisor. Almost one-third of the researchers agreed to having deliberately ignored bias or errors in their studies. Twenty-three percent revealed that they do not always take informed consent from their study subjects. More than one-third researchers revealed that they do not seek the permission of the institutional ethics committee (IEC) before commencing a study. The proportion of researchers having low, medium, or high good research practices score is 15.4%, 21.8%, and 62.8%, respectively. Conclusion: Majority of researchers indulge in misconduct, knowing, and unknowingly. These issues need to be tackled through capacity building, training of investigators and IEC members, strengthening of IEC functioning, and encouraging greater community participation.