Research Tourism, Indian Psychiatry and International Databases

Recently, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has written to several organizations seeking information on their infrastructure for drug trials. The DCGI was actually trying to figure out the Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training requirements at the national level. The DCGI wishes to build up a pool of GCP trained clinicians in the country by initiating a series of training campaigns. The first residential workshop "GCP Theory and Practice" is scheduled to be held in Madh Islands, Mumbai (February 13-15, 2003). It is gratifying to see that the workshop would include nearly everything that is connected with GCP: GCP fundamentals, Ethical issues in clinical research, Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) is now actively pursuing the goal of improving the environment for clinical trial in the country with help from the WHO-India Country Office. On one hand, this indicates the nature and extent of requests the DCGI has been receiving, for GCP trials, from the international Pharma majors. On the other, it may be read as an attempt to respond to an emerging trend of research partnership in global health campaign. This is an extremely valid concern for the time has now come to realize that there is a palpable shift from earlier cynicism about psychiatric research in developing societies towards appreciating the relative merits and potential rewards of conducting research in partnership in a developing economy. One would be tempted to comment that there was nothing new about doing research in collaboration, as the latter was never a dirt)-word. However, when it comes to the developing world, one notes that a good number of researches that are undertaken here would probably not be printed in journals having reasonably good impact factor (Patcl & Sumathipala, 2001). It has been claimed that psychiatric researches in developing countries lack focus on major psychiatric problems. It is further argued these researches are donor-driven, not priority-driven. It is also alleged that there are problems in documentation and quality. Some of these arguments are partly correct. The research environment is far from being conducive for several researchers. There is inadequate felt need for conducting research. Attitudinal deficits plague mental health research, translating into hostility and ridicule. Poor resource allocation, though a problem, is a somewhat weaker argument. There is a glaring problem of poor resource utilization as well. However, much of these are probably changing. Increasingly, there is a felt need to pursue and respect research …