Understanding the explanatory model of the patient on their medically unexplained symptoms and its implication on treatment development research: a Sri Lanka Study.

Background: Patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are often distressed, disabled and dissatisfied with the care they receive. Illness beliefs held by patients have a major influence on the decision to consult, persistence of symptoms and the degree of disability. Illness perception models consist of frameworks to organise information from multiple sources into distinct but interrelated dimensions: identity (the illness label), cause, consequences, emotional representations perceived control and timeline.

Ethics Review Committee approval and informed consent: an analysis of biomedical publications originating from Sri Lanka.

Background: International guidelines on research have focused on protecting research participants. Ethical Research Committee (ERC) approval and informed consent are the cornerstones. Externally sponsored research requires approval through ethical review in both the host and the sponsoring country.