Non-Financial Ethical Conflicts in Bio-Medical Research: Challenges and Solutions

Background and Aim: Conflicts of interest in medical research could have an adverse effect on all stages of an investigation. The main proportion of articles discussing COI focuses mainly on financial conflicts. The purpose of this research is to investigate the non-financial conflict of interest in Bio-Medical science research. Materials and Methods: A review study was conducted using the search of internal and external data bases. For this purpose, the IranMedex, Magiran, Google and Pubmed databases have been searched with key words: conflict of interest, nonfinancial and research. Related articles were collected. Then the abstract of the retrieved articles was examined and after the removal of duplicate and non-related articles, the content of the related articles was analyzed. Findings: Non-financial conflicts are less considered and more attention is paid to financial conflicts. In Iran, most research expenditures are provided directly or indirectly by the government so it seems that non-financial conflicts of interest to be more prevalent. The scholars' desire for fame, a higher degree of scholarship compared with colleagues, Gaining a higher scientific position, the acquisition of research grant, religious or political desires, etc. in adition, Some policies on the ground for the promotion of faculty members, as well as incentives for publication of papers, are contributing to these conflicts. Ethical Considerations: By observing the trustworthiness in analyzing, reporting and citations, efforts were made to disseminate results far from any kind of bias. Conclusion: The greater attention of policy makers to non-financial conflicts such as financial conflicts, the elaboration of codes of ethics in this field, the preparation of processes to identify such conflicts and changes in the rules that contribute to these conflicts could be useful in its reduction or minimize. Cite this article as: Khaji A. Non-Financial Ethical Conflicts in Bio-Medical Research: Challenges and Solutions. Med Ethics J 2019; 13(44): e16.