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Conflict of Interest Policies at German medical schools - A long way to go

Peter Grabitz, Zoe Friedmann, Sophie Gepp, Leonard U. Hess, Lisa Specht, Maja Struck, Sophie Tragert, Tobias Walther, David Klemperer
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/809723
Peter Grabitz
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
2Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, D-10117 Berlin, Germany
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  • For correspondence: interessenkonflikte@gmail.com
Zoe Friedmann
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
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Sophie Gepp
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
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Leonard U. Hess
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
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Lisa Specht
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
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Maja Struck
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
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Sophie Tragert
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
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Tobias Walther
1Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe e.V., Potsdamer Straße 143, D-10783 Berlin, Germany
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David Klemperer
3Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, Faculty of Social and Health Sciences, Seybothstraße 2, D-93053 Regensburg, Germany
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Abstract

Background Most medical students are in contact with the pharmaceutical or medical device industry during their studies. Medical schools play an important role in protecting students from undue commercial influence and educating them about pharmaceutical marketing practices. Such influence has been shown to affect later prescribing behaviour with potential adverse effects for patient care. While in North America, many medical schools formulated and implemented conflicts of interest (COI) policies, only few such institutional policies have been reported in Germany. We aimed to analyze the quantity and quality of policies and curricula on COI at medical schools across Germany.

Methods We collected relevant COI policies and teaching activities by conducting a search of the websites of all 38 German medical schools using standardized keywords for COI policies and teaching. Further, we surveyed all medical schools’ dean’s offices and adapted a scoring system for obtained results with 13 categories based on prior similar studies.

Results We identified relevant policies for one medical school via the web-search. The response rate of the deans’ survey was 16 of 38 (42.1%). In total, we identified COI-related policies for 2 of 38 (5.3%) German medical schools, yet no policy was sufficient to address all COI-related categories that were assessed in this study. The maximum score achieved was 12 of 26. 36 (94.7%) schools scored 0. No medical school reported curricular teaching on COI.

Conclusion Our results indicate a low level of action by medical schools to protect students from undue commercial influence. No participating dean was aware of any curriculum or instruction on COI at their respective school. The German Medical Students Association and international counterparts have called for a stronger focus on COI in the classroom. We conclude that for German medical schools there is still a long way to go.

Footnotes

  • http://www.interessenkonflikte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Bewertungskriterien_Interessenkonfliktstudie_Version1_42.pdf

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 18, 2019.
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Conflict of Interest Policies at German medical schools - A long way to go
Peter Grabitz, Zoe Friedmann, Sophie Gepp, Leonard U. Hess, Lisa Specht, Maja Struck, Sophie Tragert, Tobias Walther, David Klemperer
bioRxiv 809723; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/809723
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Conflict of Interest Policies at German medical schools - A long way to go
Peter Grabitz, Zoe Friedmann, Sophie Gepp, Leonard U. Hess, Lisa Specht, Maja Struck, Sophie Tragert, Tobias Walther, David Klemperer
bioRxiv 809723; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/809723

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