Importance of Clinical Research Training to Nurses’ for Wider Roles in Clinical Research: A Survey Based Study

Abstract

It has been observed that nurses play a great role in clinical studies with their limited and routine training background of nursing. Clinical research includes a vast number of clinical trials and short term studies that are taken over by different research groups from time to time. It is matter of fact that mostly physicians are the principal investigators for clinical trials and by default regulatory authorities also recommend a great contribution of physicians in such studies. It is also pertinent to mention here that physicians/ principal investigators have limited time and practically devote lesser time for these studies. At the same time contribution of nurses attached in the clinical trial/study cannot be overlooked despite lack of any scheduled training to them for clinical research. A survey was conducted in nursing colleges, reputed multi-speciality hospitals to know about the awareness of nurses at different levels working in Govt hospitals, private hospitals, post graduate students, and undergraduate nurses. A questionnaire was developed for this survey. The data shows that even M.Sc. nursing students are having a Clinical research knowledge index of only about 75% as compared to staff nurses with significantly less Clinical research knowledge index (57%) about clinical research. The study reflects certain barriers like poor lack of focussed training, knowledge of technical skills, lack of communicating skills, lack of authority to make change, poor multi-professional team work, and lack of resources and heavy work load resulting in a poor performance and deprived efficiency of nursing graduates in research projects. This study also highlights the better focussed role of nurses in clinical research after a clinical research training course. Keywords : Clinical Research Knowledge Index; Survey; Nurses; Importance of Training