title: Ethics workshops-are they effective in improving the competencies of faculty and postgraduates?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Responsible conduct of research requires a good knowledge about research ethics. With the recent changes in the clinical trial regulations and the proposed introduction of ethics in medical curriculum by the Medical Council of India, there is an urgent need to train the medical faculty and postgraduates in research ethics.
  
  
  METHODS
  We wanted to measure the effectiveness of a one day program which was organized using didactic lectures and case scenarios on the knowledge, attitude and skills on ethics among faculty and postgraduates. This was done using a retropre questionnaire. We performed a Kolmogorov Smirnov test to measure the normality, Mann Whitney U-test to test the difference in scores between faculty and postgraduates and a Wilcoxin signed rank test to measure the prepost scores.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The faculty showed better scores in knowledge and attitude (p<0.05) when compared to postgraduates both before and after the workshop. The overall scores for both faculty and postgraduates had increased after the workshop (p<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This re-emphasizes the need for introduction of ethics training during undergraduate course and also the fact that even a short training program in research ethics could be effective.
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research , Coimbatore, India .
authors.forename: Sudha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramalingam
authors.affiliation: Professor, Department of Pharmacology, PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research , Coimbatore, India .
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bhuvaneswari
authors.affiliation: Professor, Department of Pharmacology, PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research , Coimbatore, India .
authors.forename: Ramalingam
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sankaran
keywords: Ethics workshop; Program evaluation; Retropre questionnaire