Presenting a Model of Impact of Research Ethics on the Quality of Research of Faculty Members

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: With the increasing growth of research in society and the importance and necessity of research in development and progress, adherence to ethics in research seems to be one of the most important pillars for the development of science. Therefore, the present study was conducted to present a model of the impact of research ethics on the quality of research of faculty members. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on 320 faculty members of Medical Sciences Universities of a large area of the country (Babol, Semnan, Shahrood, Golestan, Gilan and Mazandaran) selected by stratified random sampling. In order to investigate the impact of research ethics on research quality, researcher-made questionnaires of research ethics consisted of 65 questions and two dimensions of "individual and social” and nine components (trustworthiness, responsibility, professional commitment, knowledge and perseverance and patience, respect for the rights of the subjects, teamwork morale, responsibility for disseminating results, and attending to community needs) were used. In addition, the research quality questionnaire including 31 questions and four dimensions of "budget and equipment, information resource development, human resource development and organization structure" was applied. In both questionnaires according to the number of questions for each component, grading was based on Likert scale from 1 to 5, and then the impact of each component on research ethics on the quality of research was assessed. FINDINGS: From 320 samples, 223 (69.7) were male and 97 (30.3) were female. The mean score of trustworthiness was 24.5±20.69 in males and 25.5±72.81 in females (p<0.05). Research ethics with standard coefficient (0.814) had an impact on research quality. The results also indicated that among the dimensions of research ethics, trustworthiness, responsibility, subject rights and teamwork spirit had a positive and significant effect on research quality (p <0.05). CONCLUSION: The results of this study demonstrated that research ethics has an impact on the quality of research of faculty members of Medical Sciences Universities in a large area of the country