EUnetHTA Adaptation Glossary (beta)

In health technology assessment ”conflict of interest” relates to two issues:

- conflict of interest in published studies (authors, sponsors) and
- conflict of interest of the people involved in the HTA.

The issue of conflict of interest in published studies may interfere with the objectivity of the study. All studies should declare conflict of interest from all authors, and how the study was sponsored.

How does the issue of conflict in publications apply to HTA?

The BMJ Editors and the International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors define competing interests as including: financial relationships with industry (for example through employment, consultancies, stock, ownership, honoraria, and expert testimony), either directly or through immediate family; personal relationships; academic competition; and intellectual passion.

Source: BMJ Editors (http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/advice/editorial_policies.shtml#competing) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/index.html#conflict).

The development and research activities should always be based on the principle of transparency. Internationally, financial and other conflicts of interest are being declared with increasing openness. Especially in research projects it is important to declare any financial or other interests that might influence the approaches taken by the researchers in the project or while drafting the final report. The persons' own assessment in this matter should be trusted and the information given should be dealt confidentially.

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill this person’s duties impartially. Even if there is no evidence of improper actions, a conflict of interests can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the ability of that person to act properly in his/her position. A conflict of interest might exist when a person working for one organisation does research for an e.g.

A conflict of interest is a situation in which a corporation or individual is in a position to exploit a professional or official capacity for their corporate or personal benefit. Competing interests can make it difficult to act impartially. Even if there is no evidence of improper actions, a conflict of interest can undermine confidence in the ability of that person to use his/her position with proper ethics.

A situation in which the private interests of someone involved in the assessment or evaluation process (e.g. interviewer, rater, scorer, evaluator) have an impact (either positive or negative) on the quality of the evaluation activities, the accuracy of the data, or the results of the evaluation.