A call for a streamlined ethics review process for multijurisdictional, child health research studies

Brigitte Lemyre; Jaya P Bodani; Stefani Doucette; Michael S Dunn; Deepak Louis; Luis Monterrosa; Amit Mukerji; Georg M Schmölzer; Prakeshkumar Shah; Balpreet Singh; Jonathan Wong; Thierry Lacaze-Masmonteil; Martin Offringa

doi:10.1093/pch/pxz160

A call for a streamlined ethics review process for multijurisdictional, child health research studies

Paediatr Child Health. 2019 Dec 19;25(7):406-408. doi: 10.1093/pch/pxz160. eCollection 2020 Nov.

Authors

Brigitte Lemyre^{1

2}, Jaya P Bodani^{3

4}, Stefani Doucette⁵, Michael S Dunn⁶, Deepak Louis⁷, Luis Monterrosa⁸, Amit Mukerji⁹, Georg M Schmölzer^{10

11}, Prakeshkumar Shah¹², Balpreet Singh^{13

14}, Jonathan Wong¹⁵, Thierry Lacaze-Masmonteil⁵, Martin Offringa¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ Division of Neonatology, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa.
² Department of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa.
³ Department of Pediatrics Regina General Hospital, Saskatchewan Health Authority, Regina.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Regina.
⁵ Department of Paediatrics, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary.
⁶ Department of Newborn and Developmental Paediatrics, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, Toronto.
⁷ Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Max Rady Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.
⁸ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, Dalhousie University, Saint-John.
⁹ Division of Neonatology, McMaster University, Hamilton.
¹⁰ Centre for the Studies of Asphyxia and Resuscitation, Neonatal Research Unit, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta.
¹¹ Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta.
¹² Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai Hospital and University of Toronto, Toronto.
¹³ Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, IWK Health Center, Halifax.
¹⁴ Department of Pediatrics, Dalhousie University, Halifax.
¹⁵ Department of Pediatrics, BC University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
¹⁶ Division of Neonatology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto.

Abstract

To be time and resource efficient in neonatal research and to answer clinically relevant questions with validity and generalizability, large numbers of infants from multiple hospitals need to be included. Multijurisdictional research in Canada is currently fraught with research ethics review process hurdles that lead to delays, administrative costs, and possibly termination of projects. We describe our experience applying for ethics review to 13 sites in 7 provinces for a project comparing two standard of care therapies for preterm born infants with respiratory distress syndrome. We welcome the current opportunity created by the Institute of Human Development Child and Youth Health and the Institute for Genetics, to collaboratively identify practical solutions that would benefit Canadian researchers, Research Ethics Boards, and children and families.

Keywords: Multicenter research; neonatology; research ethics review.