EVHRDC Capacitates Region VIII’s Health Researchers
The Eastern Visayas Health Research and Development Consortium’s (EVHRDC) Capacity Building Committee (CBC) is in charge of further enhancing the capacity of its thirty-two member institutions in engaging with research-related activities. In the year 2022, the CBC, in coordination with the other EVHRDC committees, conducted training sessions offered to all member institutions and the members of the different committees.
One of the challenges of conducting health research is to ensure the safety of its human participants. All research involving human subjects must undergo ethical review and clearance before the project is implemented. However, there are only two Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in Region VIII that are accredited by the Philippine Health Research Ethics Board (PHREB) that can provide ethical clearance; the EVHRDC Ethics Review Committee (ERC) and Eastern Visayas Medical Center (EVMC) Institutional Ethics Review Committee. To assist its member institutions in creating their own Research Ethics Committees (RECs), the CBC and the consortium’s own ERC organized different trainings. On January 17-19, 2022, CBC, in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Manila – National Institutes of Health (UPM-NIH), spearheaded the Training-Workshop on Research Ethics Committees Standard Operating Procedure for Good Clinical Practice Compliance via Zoom. Potential REC members are required to attend research ethics training and to have their own Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). These trainings normally require registration fees to participate but EVHRDC shouldered the cost of this training for its members. A total of sixty-seven participants joined the training with REC members of Samar State University (SSU) and Leyte Normal University (LNU) being given a chance to draft and update their existing SOPs and receive feedback from the resource speakers. SSU is waiting for the approval of its PHREB accreditation while LNU is working on the documents for accreditation. Other participants who are members of their own institutional RECs were able to observe how to draft different SOPs. The consortium’s ERC also conducted a Lecture on Ethics in Health Research on August 19, 2022, via Zoom. Five members of the committee served as resource speakers and provided lectures to EVHRDC member institutions, potential members of institutional ethics review committees, and professional and student researchers in the region about the salient provisions of the EVHRDC-ERC’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and the importance of having an ethical clearance for research projects involving human participants. A total of forty-three participants joined this lecture. Before the year ended, another EVHRDC-sponsored training in collaboration with UPM-NIH was conducted on September 12-14, 2022 via Zoom. The Training Workshop on Responsible Conduct of Research was conducted to provide additional training to REC members and potential members and to further encourage member institutions to apply for PHREB accreditation. Seventy-two participants joined this training. Since the REC of Leyte Normal University was already working on their PHREB accreditation, an LNU-REC SOP Writing was held on December 05-08, 2022 at Sabin Resort Hotel, Ormoc City. The EVHRDC ERC Staff Secretary served as the resource speaker and provided a Discussion on REC and Staff Functions, highlighting the roles of the REC and staff in coding protocols, designing and developing protocol logbooks, databases, folders, agenda, and meeting minutes.
May 2, 2023
