American Psychiatric Association Continuing Medical Education Policy on Full Disclosure
For all program planners and presenters at CME activities, the American Psychiatric Association requires disclosure of all financial relationships with any commercial interest in any amount occurring within the past 12 months, including those of spouse/partner. A commercial interest is an entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients. Financial relationships are those relationships in which the individual benefits by receiving a salary, royalty, intellectual property rights, consulting fee, honoraria for promotional speakers' bureau, ownership interest, or other financial benefit. An "affiliation" may include holding a position on an advisory committee, speakers' bureau or some other role or benefit to a supporting organization.
In compliance with the ACCME's Standards for Commercial Support, the APA has a management of conflict (MCI) process for all CME activities. This process ensures that all conflicts of interest are identified, managed and resolved prior to the educational activity. Additionally, the prospective audience must be informed of the presenters' or program planners' affiliations with every commercial interest by an acknowledgment in the online disclosure index and verbal or visual disclosure to participants at the session (disclosure by slide is required if audiovisual equipment is used for the presentation). Disclosing to learners the financial relationships that were present and resolved assists learners in assessing the potential for bias in the information that is presented. The APA also requires verbal disclosure of discussion of unlabeled uses of a commercial product or investigational use of a product not yet approved for this purpose.
The presenters and planners listed in section A of this online disclosure index indicated that either they or a spouse/partner have a financial interest or other affiliation with a commercial entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by or used on patients; the company name and affiliation is also listed. Providers of clinical service directly to patients are not considered to be commercial interests. The second group of presenters and planners, listed in section B, indicated neither they nor a spouse/partner have any relationship to disclose.
All presenters and planners must complete a disclosure in order to participate in an APA CME activity. These disclosures will be published in the online disclosure listing prior to the start of the meeting.