Background: Data sharing is an encouraged practice to support research in all fields. For that purpose, it is important to examine perceptions and concerns of researchers about biomedical data sharing, which was investigated in the current study. Methods: This is a cross-sectional survey study that was distributed among biomedical researchers in Jordan, as an example of developing countries. The study survey consisted of questions about demographics and about respondent’s attitudes toward sharing of biomedical data. Results: Among study participants, 46.9% (n=82) were positive regarding making their research data available to the public, whereas 53.1% refused the idea. The reasons for refusing to publicly share their data included “lack of regulations” (33.5%), “access to research data should be limited to the research team” (29.5%), “no place to deposit the data” (6.5%), and “lack of funding for data deposition” (6.0%). Agreement with the idea of making data available was associated with academic rank (P=0.003). Moreover, gender (P-value=0.043) and number of publications (P-value=0.005) were associated with a time frame for data sharing (ie, agreeing to share data before vs after publication). Conclusion: About half of the respondents reported a positive attitude toward biomedical data sharing. Proper regulations and facilitation data deposition can enhance data sharing in Jordan.

A relationship between lung transplant success and many features of recipients’/donors has long been studied. However, modeling a robust model of a potential impact on organ transplant success has proved challenging. In this study, a hybrid feature selection model was developed based on ant colony optimization (ACO) and k-nearest neighbor (kNN) classifier to investigate the relationship between the most defining features of recipients/donors and lung transplant success using data from the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS). The proposed ACO-kNN approach explores the features space to identify the representative attributes and classify patients’ functional status (i.e., quality of life) after lung transplantation. The efficacy of the proposed model was verified using 3,684 records and 118 input features from the UNOS. The developed approach examined the reliability and validity of the lung allocation process. The results are promising regarding accuracy prediction to be 91.3% and low computational time, along with better decision capabilities, emphasizing the potential for automatic classification of the lung and other organs allocation processes. In addition, the proposed model recommends a new perspective on how medical experts and clinicians respond to uncertain and challenging lung allocation strategies. Having such ACO-kNN model, a medical professional can summarize information through the proposed method and make decisions for the upcoming transplants to allocate the donor organ.

Background: Informed consent is an obligatory requirement for research engaging human subjects. Informed consent form (ICF) should be provided for human subjects to confirm their willingness for voluntary participation in a study. Ethical and legal obligations necessitate the presence of informed consent essential items to be built into the ICF. Objective: To evaluate the content of ICFs obtained from different genetic studies accomplished in Jordan and their adherence to ethical guidelines proposed by the International Conference on Harmonization—Good Clinical Practice (ICHGCP). Methods and Measures: A total of 44 ICFs obtained from master theses and grant proposals at two major universities in Jordan were analyzed according to the good clinical practice criteria proposed by ICHGCP. ICFs were scored for the presence or absence of ICF main items/categories. Results: Results show inadequate information present in the examined ICFs. The highest information score was 17 out of 20, while the lowest score was one out of 20. The average score for all studied ICFs was 6.18± 3.65. Among essential items/categories that were absent from the majority of studied ICFs were a statement about voluntary participation, confidentiality of data, compensation to study participants, risk/benefits of the study, and researchers’ contact information. Conclusion: The ICFs were missing a number of required items. This could reflect inadequate knowledge about minimal informed consent requirements among Jordanian investigators highlighting the need for research ethical training in the country.

Background: Sharing and reuse biosamples can facilitate biomedical research. Little is known about researchers’ perception and practice about sharing, reusing, and storing biosamples in Jordan. Therefore, the current study aimed to evaluate the practices of biomedical researchers in Jordan regarding biosamples management. Methods: The study was cross-sectional and involved biomedical researchers from different parts of Jordan. A questionnaire was designed to achieve the aim of this study. The questionnaire was web-based and distributed via e-mails using Google forms. Results: Opinions of Jordanian biomedical researchers from different academic ranks and institutional backgrounds were measured and recorded anonymously. The majority of the sample was males (57.9%), from public universities (64.3%), and (64.6%) were from health-related fields. About 82.9% of participants stored biosamples using codes, whereas the rest used the subject’s name. Sharing of biosamples was commonly practiced by 61.7% of Jordanian researchers locally, while 47.2% of the Jordanian researchers shared biosamples overseas. The reuse of biosamples in other projects was reported to be 55.4%. The majority explained the possibility of reusing and sharing biosamples in the consent form (range: 53–58%). Sharing and reusing biosamples were associated with gender, the number of publications in peer-reviewed international journals, and academic rank (P<0.05). Conclusion: Sharing and reusing biosamples are common among Jordanian biomedical researchers. Therefore, ethically grounded biosamples sharing and reuse standards are essential for protecting human subjects’ rights and privacy in Jordan.

Jordanian healthcare institutes have launched several programs since 2009 to establish health information systems (HISs). Nowadays, the generic expectation is that the use of HIS resources is performed on daily basis among healthcare staff. However, there can be still a noticeable barrier due to a lack of knowledge if medical doctors do not receive proper training on existing HISs. Moreover, the lack of studies on this area hinders the clarity about the received versus the required training skills among medical doctors. To support this research initiative, survey data have been collected from specialized medical doctors who are currently affiliated with five Jordanian universities to assess their need for HIS training. The results also aim to explore the extent of medical doctors’ use of HIS resources in Jordan. Moreover, they examine whether medical doctors require additional training on using HIS resources or not, as well as the main areas of required training programs. Specifically, this paper highlights the main topics that can be suitable subjects for enhanced training programs. The results show that most respondents use HISs in their daily clinical practices. However, most of them have not taken professional training on such systems. Hence, most of the respondents reported the need for additional training programs on several aspects of HIS resources. Moreover, based on the survey results, the most significant areas that require training are biomedical data analysis, artificial intelligence in medicine, health care management, and recent advances in electronic health records, respectively. Therefore, specialized medical doctors in Jordan need training on extracting useful and potential features of HISs. Education and training professionals in healthcare are recommended to establish training programs in Jordanian healthcare centers, which can further improve the quality of healthcare.