Milford Aoife, De Clercq Eva, Louis-Maerten Edwin, Geneviève Lester D, Elger Bernice S
Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Center of Legal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2025 Mar 17;20(3):e0318570. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0318570. eCollection 2025.
The aim of the scoping review is to explore the decision-making process for the evaluation of animal research proposals within Animal Ethics Committees (AEC) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC), and to critically summarize the available empirical literature on the different factors influencing, or likely to influence, decision-making by AECs when evaluating animal research proposals.
A systematic search of empirical literature published between 01.12.2012 and 03.06.2024 in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, was performed.
Twelve papers were included in the final results, four of which were quantitative, five qualitative, and three were mixed methods. Qualitative content analysis revealed deficits in the assessment of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction or Refinement) or the weighing of harms and benefits. Factors related to the review process, applicants, and committees were found to influence this process.
The findings prompt pragmatic strategies to improve the decision making process of Animal ethics committees.
The protocol for this review was registered with Open Science Framework (OSF) with the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GZJMB.
本综述的目的是探讨动物伦理委员会（AEC）和机构动物护理与使用委员会（IACUC）对动物研究提案进行评估的决策过程，并批判性地总结现有实证文献中关于影响或可能影响AEC在评估动物研究提案时决策的不同因素。
对2012年12月1日至2024年6月3日期间发表在PubMed、Scopus和科学网的实证文献进行系统检索。
最终结果纳入了12篇论文，其中4篇为定量研究，5篇为定性研究，3篇为混合方法研究。定性内容分析揭示了在评估3R原则（替代、减少或优化）或权衡危害与益处方面存在不足。发现与审查过程、申请人和委员会相关的因素会影响这一过程。
研究结果促使采取务实策略来改进动物伦理委员会的决策过程。
本综述方案已在开放科学框架（OSF）注册，DOI如下：https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GZJMB 。
