NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

Management of Physical Health Conditions in Adults with Severe Mental Disorders. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018.

Annex 2Assessment of conflict of interest

Individuals Involved in Assessment of Conflict of Interest

  • Shekhar Saxena, Director
    Department of mental health and substance abuse
    WHO headquarters
  • Tarun Dua, Programme manager
    Department of mental health and substance abuse
    WHO headquarters
  • Neerja Chowdhary, Technical officer
    Department of mental health and substance abuse
    WHO headquarters

To comply with WHO’s Conflict of Interest Policy, the Secretariat followed the revised Guidelines for Declaration of Interests (WHO Experts)1. Declarations of interest (DoI) were requested from a) all GDG members b) all external partners involved in the evidence review process; c) all experts invited to review the evidence profiles.

A letter requesting completion of a DoI form and submission of a curriculum vitae was sent to all GDG members, the external review group and external partners. They were asked to agree to the publication of a summary of declarations in the guideline. The GDG members were also required to complete a confidentiality undertaking. Once received, the WHO Secretariat reviewed the DoIs as well as additional information (internet and bibliographic database search) and evaluated if there are any conflicts of interest and if so, whether these require a management plan.

In order to enhance its management of conflicts of interest as well as strengthen public trust and transparency in connection with WHO meetings and activities involving the provision of technical/normative advice, the names and brief biographies of members being considered for participation in the GDG were disclosed for public notice and comment prior to the meeting.

At the beginning of the GDG meeting, the DoI of each GDG member were presented and GDG members and external partners were asked to update their DoI with relevant changes by notifying the responsible technical officer.

The follow up and suggested actions agreed upon to manage the conflicts of interest declared are summarized below:

  • If members declare interests that are relevant to the meeting, the WHO Secretariat will note any potential conflict of interest and summarize these and then decide whether and to what extent they can participate in the guideline development.
  • If the conflict is deemed to be significant, the WHO Secretariat will decide if the conflict necessitates exclusion of that person from participating in the guideline process or if their participation should be limited.
  • These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

Below is a summary of the declared conflicts of interest and how these were managed.

A. GDG Members

GDG Members with no relevant interests declared on the DOI form and no relevant interests found in the CV

  1. Abdullah Al-Khathami
    Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudia Arabia.
  2. Corrado Barbui
    University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
  3. Christopher Dowrick
    University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
  4. Benjamin Druss
    Emory University, Atlanta, USA.
  5. Rahib El Chammay
    National Mental Health Programme, Beirut, Lebanon.
  6. Suhaila Ghuloum
    Weill Cornell Medicine, Doha, Qatar.
  7. Yueqin Huang
    Peking University Institute of Mental Health, Beijing, China.
  8. Asma Humayun
    Meditrina Healthcare, Islamabad, Pakistan.
  9. Mario Maj
    University of Naples, Italy
  10. Soontareeporn Meepring
    Naresuan University, Bangkok, Thailand.
  11. Shanthi Mendis
    Colombo, Sri Lanka.
  12. Thomas Munk Laursen
    Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
  13. Dorairaj Prabhakaran
    Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi, India.
  14. Thara Rangaswamy
    Schizophrenia Research Foundation, Chennai, India
  15. Ezra Susser
    Columbia University, New York, USA.
  16. Graham Thornicroft
    King’s College London, London, United Kingdom.
  17. Abe Fekadu Wassie
    College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

GDG members who have declared an interest on the DOI form or where a potentially relevant interest has been noted from the CV

  • Jacqueline Curtis
    University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia.

Dr Curtis received grants for research activities (three current grants amounting to a total of USD310,400 and three previous grants amounting to a total of USD16,600) from UNSW, New South Wales (NSW) government, commonwealth Bank of Australia and Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney Foundation Patient Care Grant. She has been an expert advisor to the Orygen Youth Health (OYH) Research Centre, Melbourne for which she received USD440 remuneration in 2014. The OYH is part of the public mental health system in Melbourne, Australia, and sees young people aged 15 to 24, with a focus on early intervention and youth specific approaches. She also received honoraria for speaking at various scientific fora amounting to a total of USD5900 between 2014 and 2016 from the Adelaide Clinic, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute if Medical Science, Lundbeck, Townsville and Cairns Mental Health Services and OYH.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect Dr Curtis’s judgement in the development of the present guidelines. No further action was necessary.

  • Gail L. Daumit
    Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.

Dr Gail Lois Daumit is a Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Maryland, USA. In her DOI, she noted that the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine received four Federal grants for research projects in which she is the principal investigator, with total annual direct costs of USD 1.7 million.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Dr Daumit’s judgement in the development of the present guidelines. No further action was necessary.

  • Christopher Dowrick
    University of Liverpool, Institute of Psychology, Health and Society

Dr Dowrick declared in his DOI form that as Chair of the Working Party for Mental Health of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) he has overseen the production and publication of a set of guidance documents and training materials for family doctors on the topic related to these guidelines.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Dr Dowrick’s judgement in the development of the present guidelines. He is deemed to be participating in the guideline development process in an individual capacity and not representing any organization. No further action was necessary.

  • Oye Gureje
    Department of Psychiatry University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Professor Oye Gureje is Professor of Psychiatry and Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health, Neuroscience, Drug and Alcohol Abuse, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. In his DOI, he noted that he received research support amounting to $2.5million from the National Institute of Mental Health for a current project to study collaborative shared care for people with SMD.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Professor Gureje’s judgement in the development of the present guidelines. No further action was necessary.

  • Martin Prince
    King’s College London, London, United Kingdom.

Professor Prince declared in his DOI form that he currently receives research support through a grant from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR, UK) amounting to GBP 7 million over four years. Prof Prince is the PI and 20% of his salary costs are charged to the grant. The work focuses on health systems strengthening in sub Saharan Africa and one theme relates to the topic of these guidelines i.e. integrated primary healthcare for multimorbid conditions.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Professor Prince’s judgement in the development of the present guidelines. No further action was necessary.

  • David Shiers
    Healthy Active Lives (HeAL), Manchester, United Kingdom.

Dr David Shiers has honorary appointment with the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and University of Manchester. In his DOI, he noted that he received remuneration as consultant the National Health Service, Royal College of Psychiatrists, NICE and Health Services Executive, Ireland for activities related to the subject of the meeting or the work. He also noted that he has received, along with other partners, a total of GBP 3.2 million funding for 6 research projects from the National Institute of Health Research, UK.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Dr Shiers’s judgement in the development of the present guidelines. No further action was necessary.

B. External Review Group

Members of the external review group with no relevant interests declared on the DOI form and no relevant interests found in the CV

  1. Atalay Alem
    Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
  2. Zipporah Ali
    Kenya Hospices and Palliative Care Association, Kenya
  3. Lydia Chwastiak
    University of Washington Medical Centre, USA
  4. Pim Cuijers
    Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  5. Alan Cohen
    West London Mental Health Trust, UK
  6. Julian Eaton
    CBM and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
  7. Alberto Minoletti
    School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Chile
  8. Rajat Ray
    National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
  9. Sarrafzadegan Nizal
    Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Iran and School of Population and Public Health in the University of British Columbia in Canada
  10. John Saunders
    The University of Sydney, Australia;
  11. Najma Siddiqi
    University of York, UK
  12. Isolde Sommers
    Danube University Krems, Austria
  13. Héðinn Unnsteinsson
    Prime Minister’s Office, Iceland
  14. Pieter Ventevogel
    UNHCR, Switzerland
  15. Lakshmi Vijaykumar
    Voluntary Health Services, Chennai, India.

Members of the external review group who have declared an interest on the DOI form or where a potentially relevant interest has been noted from the CV

  • Ayesha Motala
    University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Dr Motala declared that as a public servant working in a government institute, she seeks sponsorships to meetings from various organizations, especially when her scientific abstracts are accepted for presentations. The sponsorships are merely for attending the meetings, with no obligation to the sponsoring companies.

Details of such sponsorship for which she received a total amount of $26,000:

4–8 December 2017: International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Congress, Abu Dhabi: Sanofi Aventis sponsorship for travel and Accommodation; 11–15 September 2017: European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Congress, Lisbon: Pfizer sponsorship for Travel and accommodation; 8–13 June 2018: American Diabetes Association (ADA), San Diego: Boehringer Ingelheim sponsorship for Travel and accommodation: a member of her collaborating scientific team presented a paper.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Dr Motala’s contribution as an external reviewer for these guidelines. No further action was necessary.

  • Charlene Sunkel
    Central Gauteng Mental Health Society, South Africa

Ms Sunkel is a service user group representative and declared that she has published in the World Psychiatry journal on premature mortality of people with SMD titled: “A service users perspective” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5269497/

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Ms Sunkel’s contribution as an external reviewer for these guidelines. No further action was necessary.

  • Inka Weissbecker
    International Medical Corps, Washington DC, USA.

Dr Weissbecker works for International Medical Corps (IMC) which is a humanitarian non-profit organization and has an interest in the subject of mental health and distress related to humanitarian crises (as IMC has various global projects integrating mental health and psychosocial support). She has also worked as a consultant in the field of mental health in the past (more than 10 years ago) including for WHO.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Dr Weissbecker’s contribution as an external reviewer for these guidelines. No further action was necessary.

C. External Partners

External partners with no relevant interests declared on the DOI form and no relevant interests found in the CV

  • Maya Semrau
    King’s College London, London and Global Health and Infection Department, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton, United Kingdom.

External partners who have declared an interest on the DOI form or where a potentially relevant interest has been noted from the CV

  • Kavitha Kolappa
    Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Dr Kolappa is part of the systematic review team for the development of these guidelines. Dr Kolappa declared that she received research support amounting to approximately USD 56,000 (USD 51,000 as stipend and USD 5000 for travel costs and purchase of computer) from the National Institutes of Health, USA. The period of this grant was for one year and ended in October 2017. Her area of study was the proposed relationship between social relationships, metabolic disease, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Dr Kolappa’s contribution to the evidence review and synthesis process for the development of the present guidelines. As a member of the systematic review group she will be a technical resource and, therefore, will not participate in any of the closed sessions (voting or drafting final recommendations). No further action was necessary.

  • Jayati Das-Munshi
    King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

Dr Das-Munshi is part of the systematic review team. In her DOI she noted that she is funded (amount GBP578198) by a Clinical Scientist Fellowship by a UK health charity, Health Foundation, in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences. She stated that the funder does not have any business or commercial interest in the work related to these guidelines and her research is independent of the funder’s views.

Action: It was felt that this interest is insignificant or minimal and unlikely to affect, or be reasonably perceived to affect, Dr Das-Munshi’s contribution to the evidence review and synthesis process for the development of the present guidelines. As a member of the systematic review group she will be a technical resource and, therefore, will not participate in any of the closed sessions (voting or drafting final recommendations). No further action was necessary.

Footnotes

1

WHO Office of Compliance, Risk Management and Ethics (CRE) http://intranet​.who.int​/homes/cre/ethics/doiexperts/

© World Health Organization 2018.

Sales, rights and licensing. To purchase WHO publications, see http://apps.who.int/bookorders. To submit requests for commercial use and queries on rights and licensing, see http://www.who.int/about/licensing.

Third-party materials. If you wish to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a third party, such as tables, figures or images, it is your responsibility to determine whether permission is needed for that reuse and to obtain permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claims resulting from infringement of any third-party-owned component in the work rests solely with the user.

Some rights reserved. This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo).

Under the terms of this licence, you may copy, redistribute and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes, provided the work is appropriately cited, as indicated below. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that WHO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. If you adapt the work, then you must license your work under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. If you create a translation of this work, you should add the following disclaimer along with the suggested citation: “This translation was not created by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original English edition shall be the binding and authentic edition”.

Any mediation relating to disputes arising under the licence shall be conducted in accordance with the mediation rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Bookshelf ID: NBK534486