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BMC Medical Education May 2018Involvement of clinicians in biomedical research is imperative for the future of healthcare. Several factors influence clinicians' inclination towards research: the...
BACKGROUND
Involvement of clinicians in biomedical research is imperative for the future of healthcare. Several factors influence clinicians' inclination towards research: the medical school experience, exposure to research article reading and writing, and knowledge of research. This cohort study follows up medical students at time of graduation to explore changes in their inclination towards research and pursuing a research career compared to their inclination at time of entry into medical school.
METHODS
Students from medical schools in six different countries were enrolled in their first year of school and followed-up upon graduation in their final year. Students answered the same self-administered questionnaire at both time points. Changes in inclination towards research and pursuing a research career were assessed. Factors correlated with these changes were analysed.
RESULTS
Of the 777 medical students who responded to the study questionnaire at entry into medical school, 332 (42.7%) completed the follow-up survey. Among these 332 students, there was no significant increase in inclination towards research or pursuing a research career over the course of their medical schooling. Students from a United States based school, in contrast to those from schools other countries, were more likely to report having research role models to guide them (51.5% vs. 0%-26.4%) and to have published in a peer-reviewed journal (75.7% vs. 8.9%-45%). Absence of a role model was significantly associated with a decrease in inclination towards research, while an increased desire to learn more about statistics was significantly associated with an increase in inclination towards pursuing a research career.
CONCLUSION
Most medical students did not experience changes in their inclination towards research or pursuing a research career over the course of their medical schooling. Factors that increased their inclination to undertaking research or pursuing a research career were availability of a good role model, and a good knowledge of both the research process and the analytical tools required.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Biomedical Research; Career Choice; Female; Humans; Internationality; Male; Mentors; Professional Role; Prospective Studies; Research; Research Personnel; Schools, Medical; Students, Medical; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult
PubMed: 29716587
DOI: 10.1186/s12909-018-1202-6 -
The Journal of the American Osteopathic... May 2015Dissemination is an important part of translational research. When the results of high-quality studies reach a wide audience of peers, they provide an evidence base that... (Review)
Review
Dissemination is an important part of translational research. When the results of high-quality studies reach a wide audience of peers, they provide an evidence base that can guide practice and improve patient care and safety. From proposal to publication, the authors provide the novice researcher with advice on ethics, tips on selecting a journal, a summary of manuscript requirements, and a brief outline of the submission process and outcomes. By demystifying these processes and outlining some of the basic requirements, the authors hope to encourage novice researchers to engage in quality research and prepare them for disseminating their results.
Topics: Biomedical Research; Guidelines as Topic; Humans; Osteopathic Medicine; Publishing; Research Personnel
PubMed: 25938527
DOI: 10.7556/jaoa.2015.063 -
Journal of the Medical Library... Jan 2020Open access (OA) publishing rates have risen dramatically in the biomedical sciences in the past decade. However, few studies have focused on the publishing activities...
INTRODUCTION
Open access (OA) publishing rates have risen dramatically in the biomedical sciences in the past decade. However, few studies have focused on the publishing activities and attitudes of early career researchers. The aim of this study was to examine current publishing activities of clinical and research fellows and their perceptions of OA publishing and public access.
METHODS
This study employed a mixed methods approach. Data on publications authored by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center fellows between 2013 and 2018 were collected via an in-house author profile system and citation indexes. Journals were categorized according to SHERPA/RoMEO classifications. In-person and telephone interviews were conducted with fifteen fellows to discern their perceptions of OA publishing.
RESULTS
The total percentage of fellows' publications that were freely available OA was 28.6%, with a relatively flat rate between 2013 and 2018. Publications with fellows as first authors were significantly more likely to be OA. Fellows cited high article processing charges (APCs) and perceived lack of journal quality or prestige as barriers to OA publishing. Fellows generally expressed support for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) public access policy.
CONCLUSIONS
While the fellows in this study acknowledged the potential of OA to aid in research dissemination, they also expressed hesitation to publish OA related to confusion surrounding legitimate OA and predatory publications and frustration with APCs. Fellows supported the NIH public access policy and accepted it as part of their research process. Health sciences information professionals could potentially leverage this acceptance of public access to advocate for OA publishing.
Topics: Access to Information; Adult; Biomedical Research; Female; Forecasting; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Open Access Publishing; Research Personnel; Research Report; United States
PubMed: 31897051
DOI: 10.5195/jmla.2020.751 -
PloS One 2021Systematic reviews (SRs) are cornerstones of evidence-based medicine and have contributed significantly to breakthroughs since the 1980's. However, preclinical SRs...
BACKGROUND
Systematic reviews (SRs) are cornerstones of evidence-based medicine and have contributed significantly to breakthroughs since the 1980's. However, preclinical SRs remain relatively rare despite their many advantages. Since 2011 the Dutch health funding organisation (ZonMw) has run a grant scheme dedicated to promoting the training, coaching and conduct of preclinical SRs. Our study focuses on this funding scheme to investigate the relevance, effects and benefits of conducting preclinical SRs on researchers and their research.
METHODS
We recruited researchers who attended funded preclinical SR workshops and who conducted, are still conducting, or prematurely stopped a SR with funded coaching. We gathered data using online questionnaires followed by semi-structured interviews. Both aimed to explore the impact of conducting a SR on researchers' subsequent work, attitudes, and views about their research field. Data-analysis was performed using Excel and ATLAS.ti.
RESULTS
Conducting preclinical SRs had two distinct types of impact. First, the researchers acquired new skills and insights, leading to a change in mindset regarding the quality of animal research. This was mainly seen in the way participants planned, conducted and reported their subsequent animal studies, which were more transparent and of a higher quality than their previous work. Second, participants were eager to share their newly acquired knowledge within their laboratories and to advocate for change within their research teams and fields of interest. In particular, they emphasised the need for preclinical SRs and improved experimental design within preclinical research, promoting these through education and published opinion papers.
CONCLUSION
Being trained and coached in the conduct of preclinical SRs appears to be a contributing factor to many beneficial changes which will impact the quality of preclinical research in the long-term. Our findings suggest that this ZonMw funding scheme is helpful in improving the quality and transparency of preclinical research. Similar funding schemes should be encouraged, preferably by a broader group of funders or financers, in the future.
Topics: Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; Humans; Interviews as Topic; Research Design; Research Personnel; Surveys and Questionnaires; Systematic Reviews as Topic
PubMed: 34898637
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260619 -
Disease Models & Mechanisms Apr 2023Bioethics is the formal study of ethical judgments concerning the advances and applications of biology, medicine and related technologies. In a time of unprecedented...
Bioethics is the formal study of ethical judgments concerning the advances and applications of biology, medicine and related technologies. In a time of unprecedented biomedical advances, it is critical to integrate bioethical frameworks more fully into biomedical research to align these scientific advances with their intended societal needs. In this Perspective, we describe some motivations and frameworks for cross-disciplinary bioethical training for biomedical researchers, and discuss how actively considering bioethics in research and study design could maximize biomedical researchers' intended impacts in society.
Topics: Humans; Bioethics; Biomedical Research; Research Design; Research Personnel
PubMed: 37092345
DOI: 10.1242/dmm.050046 -
Health Research Policy and Systems May 2018Getting research into policy and practice in healthcare is a recognised, world-wide concern. As an attempt to bridge the gap between research and practice, research...
BACKGROUND
Getting research into policy and practice in healthcare is a recognised, world-wide concern. As an attempt to bridge the gap between research and practice, research funders are requesting more interdisciplinary and collaborative research, while actual experiences of such processes have been less studied. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to gain more knowledge on the interdisciplinary, collaborative and partnership research process by investigating researchers' experiences of and approaches to the process, based on their participation in an inventive national research programme. The programme aimed to boost collaborative and partnership research and build learning structures, while improving ways to lead, manage and develop practices in Swedish health and social services.
METHODS
Interviews conducted with project leaders and/or lead researchers and documentation from 20 projects were analysed using directed and conventional content analysis.
RESULTS
Collaborative approaches were achieved by design, e.g. action research, or by involving practitioners from several levels of the healthcare system in various parts of the research process. The use of dual roles as researcher/clinician or practitioner/PhD student or the use of education designed especially for practitioners or 'student researchers' were other approaches. The collaborative process constituted the area for the main lessons learned as well as the main problems. Difficulties concerned handling complexity and conflicts between different expectations and demands in the practitioner's and researcher's contexts, and dealing with human resource issues and group interactions when forming collaborative and interdisciplinary research teams. The handling of such challenges required time, resources, knowledge, interactive learning and skilled project management.
CONCLUSIONS
Collaborative approaches are important in the study of complex phenomena. Results from this study show that allocated time, arenas for interactions and skills in project management and communication are needed during research collaboration to ensure support and build trust and understanding with involved practitioners at several levels in the healthcare system. For researchers, dealing with this complexity takes time and energy from the scientific process. For practitioners, this puts demands on understanding a research process and how it fits with on-going organisational agendas and activities and allocating time. Some of the identified factors may be overlooked by funders and involved stakeholders when designing, performing and evaluating interdisciplinary, collaborative and partnership research.
Topics: Cooperative Behavior; Delivery of Health Care; Health Personnel; Health Policy; Health Services; Health Services Research; Humans; Interdisciplinary Communication; Leadership; Learning; Research Personnel; Social Work; Surveys and Questionnaires; Sweden; Translational Research, Biomedical
PubMed: 29843735
DOI: 10.1186/s12961-018-0322-0 -
Health Research Policy and Systems Dec 2022Public involvement in health and social care research is increasingly prioritized by policy-makers and research funders. Often, the impact of the involvement is...
A balance between putting on the researcher's hat and being a fellow human being: a researcher perspective on informal carer involvement in health and social care research.
BACKGROUND
Public involvement in health and social care research is increasingly prioritized by policy-makers and research funders. Often, the impact of the involvement is described in terms of how it has contributed to the research outcomes and how it has affected the involved members of the public. There is a dearth of studies reporting from the perspective of researchers themselves of having involved members of the public in their research. Nevertheless, there is a general expectation for researchers to accept and embrace public involvement in research. This study aims to explore researchers' views of involving informal carers in health and social care research.
METHODS
Eleven individual in-depth interviews with researchers in the fields of social work, caring science, health science and medical science constituted the dataset of this qualitative study, inspired by discourse psychology.
RESULTS
The qualitative data analysis resulted in two interpretative repertoires describing researchers' views of involving informal carers in research, "Philosophy of Science" and "Personal relationships and growth". Both repertoires need to be recognized; however, as of today, the Philosophy of Science repertoire is more acknowledged, while the second repertoire describing empathy, relationships and emotions may be viewed as the researcher being "unprofessional". Further, the findings highlighted the dual perspective of being a researcher and a carer as creating opportunities for growth on the part of the researcher, on both a professional and a personal level.
CONCLUSIONS
Researchers and their research work would benefit from acknowledging, discussing and reporting both interpretative repertoires in their publications, as well as recognizing the benefit of dialectal positions, for example, having a dual perspective as both a researcher and an informal carer.
Topics: Humans; Caregivers; Social Support; Qualitative Research; Research Personnel; Social Work
PubMed: 36527014
DOI: 10.1186/s12961-022-00946-8 -
Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal Dec 2021The Community Engagement Core (CEC) of the Center of Collaborative Research in Health Disparities focuses on developing and implementing strategies to increase...
OBJECTIVE
The Community Engagement Core (CEC) of the Center of Collaborative Research in Health Disparities focuses on developing and implementing strategies to increase academic-community collaborations and partnerships, enhance the recruitment and retention of study participants, disseminate research findings to a broader audience, and mitigate health disparities in Puerto Rico.
METHODS
In order to assess the current state of academic-community relationships and also collect ideas for their improvement, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis was conducted. Participants for the SWOT analysis activity were drawn from a pool of stakeholders at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus and a group of community representatives.
RESULTS
The areas identified by the group for the CEC to focus on were weaknesses such as 1) a lack of interaction and involvement with community leaders, 2) limited numbers of advocacy groups in several health areas, and 3) few research consortia. Opportunities identified included the possibilities of 1) creating alliances between academia and industry, municipalities, and community-based organizations, 2) advocating integration in research proposals, and 3) establishing a network of researchers and community leaders.
CONCLUSION
The SWOT analysis activity served to foster relationships with diverse community stakeholders and select members for a community advisory board to collaborate in developing educational activities for our researchers and communities. These findings will also help the CEC establish a strategic plan that should be able to supply a strong community-based participatory research approach that would help mitigate health disparities in Puerto Rico, as well as define the strategies to implement such recommendations.
Topics: Cities; Community-Based Participatory Research; Humans; Puerto Rico; Research Personnel; Translational Research, Biomedical
PubMed: 35077073
DOI: No ID Found -
BMC Medical Research Methodology May 2023Guidance and reporting principles such as CONSORT (for randomised trials) and PRISMA (for systematic reviews) have greatly improved the reporting, discoverability,... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Guidance and reporting principles such as CONSORT (for randomised trials) and PRISMA (for systematic reviews) have greatly improved the reporting, discoverability, transparency and consistency of published research. We sought to develop similar guidance for case study evaluations undertaken to explore the influence of context on the processes and outcomes of complex interventions.
METHODS
A range of experts were recruited to an online Delphi panel, sampling for maximum diversity in disciplines (e.g. public health, health services research, organisational studies), settings (e.g. country), and sectors (e.g. academic, policy, third sector). To inform panel deliberations, we prepared background materials based on: [a] a systematic meta-narrative review of empirical and methodological literatures on case study, context and complex interventions; [b] the collective experience of a network of health systems and public health researchers; and [c] the established RAMESES II standards (which cover one kind of case study). We developed a list of topics and issues based on these sources and encouraged panel members to provide free text comments. Their feedback informed development of a set of items in the form of questions for potential inclusion in the reporting principles. We circulated these by email, asking panel members to rank each potential item twice (for relevance and validity) on a 7-point Likert scale. This sequence was repeated twice.
RESULTS
We recruited 51 panel members from 50 organisations across 12 countries, who brought experience of a range of case study research methods and applications. 26 completed all three Delphi rounds, reaching over 80% consensus on 16 items covering title, abstract, definitions of terms, philosophical assumptions, research question(s), rationale, how context and complexity relates to the intervention, ethical approval, empirical methods, findings, use of theory, generalisability and transferability, researcher perspective and influence, conclusions and recommendations, and funding and conflicts of interest.
CONCLUSION
The 'Triple C' (Case study, Context, Complex interventions) reporting principles recognise that case studies are undertaken in different ways for different purposes and based on different philosophical assumptions. They are designed to be enabling rather than prescriptive, and to make case study evaluation reporting on context and complex health interventions more comprehensive, accessible and useable.
Topics: Humans; Publications; Research Design; Health Services Research; Research Personnel; Consensus
PubMed: 37179308
DOI: 10.1186/s12874-023-01888-7 -
PloS One 2015Despite widespread support from policy makers, funding agencies, and scientific journals, academic researchers rarely make their research data available to others. At...
Despite widespread support from policy makers, funding agencies, and scientific journals, academic researchers rarely make their research data available to others. At the same time, data sharing in research is attributed a vast potential for scientific progress. It allows the reproducibility of study results and the reuse of old data for new research questions. Based on a systematic review of 98 scholarly papers and an empirical survey among 603 secondary data users, we develop a conceptual framework that explains the process of data sharing from the primary researcher's point of view. We show that this process can be divided into six descriptive categories: Data donor, research organization, research community, norms, data infrastructure, and data recipients. Drawing from our findings, we discuss theoretical implications regarding knowledge creation and dissemination as well as research policy measures to foster academic collaboration. We conclude that research data cannot be regarded as knowledge commons, but research policies that better incentivise data sharing are needed to improve the quality of research results and foster scientific progress.
Topics: Academies and Institutes; Humans; Information Dissemination; Research; Research Personnel; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 25714752
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118053