Necessity of Ethics Committee approval for Observational Studies

Observational studies raise less ethical challenges in comparison to interventional studies. As a result, sometimes, the necessity of Ethical Review of these studies has been neglected. Generally, there are several ethical considerations in each step of observational studies in managerial approach that have been discussed in this paper. These steps include research question, design of study and protocol, collecting information, Inducements, documentation and communication of study results. The most important ethical considerations of information collection are obtaining informed consent from research subjects and maintaining confidentiality which menans that respect for privacy and autonomy of research subjects are very important, especially during the use of health records, interview with sever patients and research on incompetent patients. Investigator can provide a motivation for research subjects, but an inappropriate inducement is not acceptable. Because of these Ethical considerations, each observational study should be reviewed by Research Ethics Committee