An evaluation of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals 4Ps Programme for the development of nurses, midwives and allied healthcare professionals' research skills.

Abstract

Research forms an important part of clinical practice for nurses, midwives and allied healthcare professionals (NMAHPs). However, it is known there is a lack of confidence in this community in the development and use of research skills. The 4Ps Programme is a bespoke research-training programme that focuses on four areas: place, project, person and plan. To report an evaluation of the 4Ps Programme that used a survey to record the confidence levels reported by NMAHPs. An increase in participants' confidence was observed across all modules in the 4Ps Programme. This exceeded the standard deviation in the 'place' session, demonstrating genuine improvement. It was not possible to demonstrate a significant improvement in all cases. Low response rates affected the quality of the data obtained in the study, which would have benefitted from a more targeted approach to questions and better enabled the tracking of individuals' improvement over the course of the programme. Participation in bespoke, targeted training related to research could lead to an increase in NMAHPs' confidence in research-related activities. Efforts need to be made to refine the evaluation approach and improve response rates. The 4Ps Programme can improve research-related confidence. Improved and further longitudinal evaluation will assess its impact in developing future clinical academics.