The other face of research governance

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.280

BMJ 2004;329:280-281 (31 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.280

Education and debate

The other face of research governance

Alysun M Jones, consultant clinical psychologist¹, Bryony Bamford, assistant clinical psychologist²

¹ Specialist Treatment for Eating Problems Unit, Southmead Hospital, Bristol BS10 5NB, ² Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care Trust, Broadway House, Bridgwater, Somerset TA6 5YA

Correspondence to: A M Jones carrie.sambrook@awp.nhs.uk

After inadvertently making an unauthorised protocol deviation,two researchers were left with a weakened study and feelingdisillusioned

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Research governance is designed to ensure that "health and socialcare research is conducted to high scientific and ethical standards."¹Currently the same process is applied to all breaches, regardlessof their severity or likely implications. Although we do notdeny the importance and relevance of research governance, ourexperience leads us to question how it is applied.

What we did

Our project, funded through a small grant from the trust, exploredthe effect of several variables on outcome in a day therapyservice for eating disorders. Our outcome measures comprisedseveral questionnaires administered at three monthly intervalsto clients with eating disorders. As a result of advice fromour project steering group (a necessary requirement for suchprojects), we agreed to introduce a simple qualitative measureto balance the fact that our original protocol used only quantitativemeasures. We used an interview based on a standard questionnaire(the Morgan and Russell scale². . . [Full text of this article]

What happened

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After effects

Reflections and recommendations

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