Supplementing research ethics training in psychiatry residents: A five-tier approach

Ethics training is a key step in the research supervision of psychiatry trainees and there is need for a structured educational module.

We developed a new research ethics training module for psychiatry residents - The Five-Tier Approach. Twenty-five first year psychiatry residents of an academic psychiatric training centre in India participated in this multi-session workshop. Module 1 included the completion of NIH online certification course for research ethics training. Module 2 was a one-hour interactive group discussion on ethical principles in research. Module 3 was a two-hour session consisting of case-based group discussion of nine selected research vignettes. Module 4 involved preparation of an informed consent form. Module 5 was a mock ethics committee role-played by seven students while the larger group observed using a Fish Bowl technique and provided feedback. Assessments were done during the third and final modules.

During the third module, understanding regarding certain areas - autonomy, benefits and justice was found to be inadequate. In the final step, all ethical aspects were covered by the students.

This five-tier approach seems like a superior tool for research ethics training in academic institutions, especially in Southeast Asia, where the student-teacher ratios are generally very high.