Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the need for research training among nurses and health professionals in a rural province of Thailand and to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions designed to address the identified factors. This two-phase study used a cross-sectional design with one-group pre- and post-tests. In phase I, 149 subjects from 16 subdistrict health promoting hospitals and one district hospital were sampled. As an intervention, an academic-practice team approach to research capacity building was designed. Twenty-four volunteers completed a three-time point assessment of intervention in phase II. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires and analyzed using bivariate and multivariate statistics. Phase-I results indicated that 33.6% of subjects were involved in the research implementation. They had a moderate perception of research barriers and capacity. The research experiences, capacity, and barriers associated with the research implementation were described in detail (p < 0.05). The only positive predictor of research implementation was research training (p < 0.001). The intervention improved 24 participants’ competency (p < 0.05). Most of their research proposals had received ethics approval and a small grant. These findings highlight the efforts of innovative research capacity development and its impact on research and health practices among nurses and health professionals.
Highlights
Our findings showed that 33.6% of participants had implemented their research projects, and only 6.7% had research projects being undertaken, which is consistent with related research, which found that 25% of community health staff experienced assisting research projects [10], and 15% of primary healthcare professionals had an active research project [14]
After engaging in the APTP-Research capacity building (RCB) intervention, the findings showed that participants perceived competency (PRC) at M2 and M3 higher than those at M1 and M2, respectively
According to the purpose of this study, the findings revealed poor research engagement among nurses and health professionals providing communities and primary healthcare services
Summary
Nurses and various public health professionals are increasingly expected to make evidence from scientific studies available to evidence-based practice (EBP), but this expectation has not yet been fulfilled [3,4,5]. Barriers to the use of research findings in practices are the organizational context (e.g., insufficient time, low authority to change, inadequate facilities), and the presentation of evidence (e.g., statistics, compatibility to understand context, and availability of evidence), and characteristics of users (e.g., unaware of research, incapable of evaluating research, isolated from knowledgeable colleagues) [6,7]. Related studies identified barriers to research participation, such as time constraints [4,8], staff shortages [9] or overwork [8], lack of knowledge/skills [8,10], funding [4,8], and lack of supervision and research training [4,11]
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