PRIME-K AIM 3 SURVEY REPOR
INTRODUCTION
OBJECTIVES
To find out the factors affecting interest in research in student and staff at the college of Health science.
Research activities are an integral part of teaching and learning at the college of health sciences, however this has been conspicuously on the decline. This has prompted a study to be conducted to look into the factors that affect the interest in research and the perception of students and teaching staff on the role of research in Kenyans’ health care service delivery.
METHOD
A preformed questionare was delivered with structured questions to the teaching staff and students at the college of health sciences. The respondent was classified as follows; Schools of medicine (SOM),School of Public Health (SOPH),School of Nursing Sciences (SONS) School of Pharmacy (SOP), University of Nairobi Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (UNITID) , School of Dental Sciences (SDS) , Centre for HIV Prevention and Research (CHIVPR) that constitute the College of Health (CHS) Sciences
The results were recorded and analysed scientifically to give the clear picture on what are the determining factors when it comes to research activities.
FINDINGS
The total number of respondents 53.4% were female and 43.8% were male and the age ranged between 21-61 years . Most of the respondents were Masters’ students accounting for 42% of the respondents, while senior lecturers and lecturers each accounted for 11.1%. Professors accounted for 1.2%, associate professors 7.4% and tutorial fellows 18.5%. Schools
Research status
This shows that 63% of the respondents were interested in research of which a majority were from the school of dentistry (44.4%) and school of pharmacy (72.9%). a lower percentage of about 43% of the respondents were commited to research and an even lower percentage of about 20% were involved in research with respondents from the school of pharmacy (33.3%) making up the majority of this group.
Only 27.7% of the respondents always completed their research majority being from the school of dentistry.12 % of the respondents always write research proposals while about 11% write multidisciplinary research proposals.
Reasons for non competion of research
The major cause of this was stated by 69.8%aslack of funds as the main reason for not completing research. 21.1% of the respondents cited time available for the reseach activity as being the main hindrance to completing research. Very few respondents thought ethicalconsiderations were the reasons that hinder them from completing research. Other reasons floated for non completion of research were inadequate motivation and academic environment.
Types of Research showed that 60.25% of the respondents have written multidisciplinary research proposals for funds with the schools of dentistry, medicine and pharmacy having 69%, 61.1% and 68% of the respondents responding positively to the same effect.
Funds
The success rate of securing funds was at 55.6% with 80% of school of dentistry resppondents and 75% of school of pharmacy respondents being successful while31.2% of the respondents experienced challenges in writing proposals for funding.
Challenges in securing funds
The main challenges to securing funds to most respondents were available time (33.7%) and qualification (32.7%). Of note was that 50% of respondents from the school of pharmacy cited qualification as the challenge in securing funds for research. Only 14.2% of the respondents cited specialty as a challenge in securing funds.
Other challenges given by the respondents were inadequate informartion on avaiilable funds, modalities of grant application and the lack of a contact person between the researcher and the donor.
Total amountof Funds received over the past 5 years of research
About 75%, received absolutely no funding over the past 5 years with only 13% receiving less than $5000. About 6% of the respondent received between $10000 and $20000 while another 13% received more than $20000 for research.
Other Non-funds support received over the past 5 years
Some 47.2% of the respondents received human resource as the main non-funding support. A further 28.5% received infrastructure as a non-funding form of support. Other received establishment and training on research skills as support over the past 5 years of research.
Source of funds
Of the respondents 18% sponsored themselves through their research while 13% of them received funding from the ministry of health. Non-governmental organissations funded about 9% of the respondents while only 5% received funding from the Dean’s committee. Others received scholarships from universities abroad and foreign governments.
Research experience and career development
Approximately, 59.7% of the respondents were interested in multidisciplinary research of which 72.7% of respondents from the school of pharmacy while 64.7% of their counterparts from the school of medicine showing this interest. 59% of the respondents were interested in joint research where in the school of pharmacy 77.3% showed this interest while 64.7% of respondents in the school of medicine and 58.6% of the respondents in the school of denistry were interested in the joint research. Very few respondents (26.7%) were interested in the solo research or investigation.
Areas of research interest
Respondents chose areas of research interest that touched on the field of study. Those in the school of dentistry preffered to do research in areas pertaining to oral health while those in the school of pharmacy preffered areas touching on pharmacology.
However there was a common ground when it came to HIV/AIDS as at least 2% of the respondents were interested in a form of research that would involve looking into HIV/AIDS management. There was also some interest in cancer research with respondents from the school of denistry and medicine showing interest in this field.
Research competence
Requisite level of strength areas of writing research proposals showed that ; 33.3% of the respondents cited writing ; objective and setting as the areas of high strength while 27.7% thought problem statement and justification was of high strength. 27.4%, of the respondents thought developing of research question as an area of high strength. 30% of the respondents rated hypothesis formulation as a high level strength area in writing a reseach proposal.Of note is 25.1% of the respondents rated design of data collectioninstrument (quantitative) as a high level strength area in proposal writing.
In assessing the level of training required to write a research proposal, 52% of the respondents majorly from the schools of dentistry (41.4%) and pharmacy (57.1%), thought that very intense training on data analysis was required in order to write a research proposal. 39.2% of the respondents thought intense training in the interpratation of data was of help in the writing of research proposal. 31.1% gave design of data collection instruments (quantitative) as an area of importance in training in order to write a research proposal. 29.8% stated sample size calculation, 28.7% research design and 25.8% sample techniques. 24.2% gave training on design of data collection instrument (qualitative).
Research mentorship
Rating the level of availability of mentorship, 58% of researchers at the Kenyatta National Hospital always had access to mentorship, 36% of the respondents at the college level accessed mentorship while 21.2% of the respondents were always in touch with their mentors. 23.3% of the respondents at the unit level were in constant contact with their mentors whereas only 16.4% of the respondents at the department level were in contact with their mentors.
Impact of Research activities
Some 84.4% of the respondents strongly agreed that research and publishing increases the visibility of a university with 100% of those in the school of nursing and 85.7% in the school of dentistry. 82.3% of the respondents strongly agreed that developing countries need research. 75.1% agreed that publishing is important for any lecturer aspiring to grow professionally. Only 49% agreedthat lecturers should be compensated for teaching load and publishing in refereed journals whilst 25.8% agreed that lecturers who do not publish have no business teaching in university.
Research ethics and intellectual property
Only 38.5% of the respondents were familiar to a great extent with the Helsinki Declaration governing clinical resaerch on humans and animals. 67% were farmiliar to a great extent the work of the Ethical Review committees in the university and Kenyatta National Hospital.40.7% were familiar to a great extent that research findings are intellectual property protected by an act of parliament whereas only 42.8% were aware that University of Nairobi has an intellectual property policy.
Suggestions as to how to Improve Research activities.
About 44.2% of the respondents thought career development awards are necessary in research training while 50.5% thought seed grants are of immense relevance in research training. 53.6% of the respondents agreed it is always necessary to train on grant proposal writing, 60.7% thought training on responsible conduct of research was of great relevance in research training. 60.6% thought training on applied research methods is always relevant in research training. Only 53.5% of the respondents thought that training on clinical research methods.
Suggestions on improving research skills.
To improve the research skills 21% (26/119) of the respondents irrespective of the school, were of the opinion that increased funding would increase by far the research activitiies in the College of Health Sciences. A further 17% (21/119) of the responddents cited training on necessary research skills as a vital approach towards improving research activitiies and skills. 13% (17/119) suggested ample allocation of time specifically for research would significantly improve research skills and activity. 12.6% (15/119) of the respondents cited mentorship to play apivotal role in the improvement of the research skills and activities.
Suggestions on increasing the number of people doing research.
About 26% (31/119) 0f the respondents suggested that introduction of incentives and awards would significantly increase the number of people doing research. 23.5% (28/119) suggested increase in funding would have the similar effect. 10.9% (13/119) and 10% (11/119) suggested training on research skills and mentorship, respectively, as ways of increasing the number of people doing research.
Suggestion on development of research culture.
11.7% (14/119) of the respondents suggested mentorship and funding as the most important approach in achieving this goal. 8% (10/119) suggested training, while of note is that 7.5% (9/119) suggested that research skill training and activities be integrated into the undergraduate programme.
Role of research in the country’s development.
19% (23/119) of the respondents thought research would contribute to the formulation of health care policies. 12.6% thought research would improve the service delivery in the health care system while 8% thought research woud help develop cost effective methods of medical interventions.
Priority of research.
The suggested priorities of research were diverse touching on virtually all disciplines in the health care system. The respondents had bias in their suggestions with opinions bent on the school and the course one is doing. Parallels, however, could be drawn in specific areas e.g HIV/AIDS.