African emergency care providers’ attitudes and practices towards research

Abstract

IntroductionEmergency care research in Africa is not on par with other world regions. The study aimed to assess the perceptions and practices towards research among current emergency care providers in Africa.MethodsA survey was sent to all individual members of the African Federation of Emergency Medicine. The survey was available in English and French.ResultsOne hundred and sixty-eight responses were analysed (invited n = 540, responded n = 188, 34.8%, excluded n = 20). Responders’ mean age was 36.3 years (SD = 9.1); 122 (72.6%) were male, 104 (61.9%) were doctors, and 127 (75.6%) were African trained. Thirty-seven (22%) have never been involved in research; 33 (19.6%) have been involved in ⩾5 research projects. African related projects were mostly relevant to African audiences (n = 106, 63.1%). Ninety-four (56%) participants have never published. Forty-one (24.4%) were not willing to publish in open access journals requesting a publication fee; 65 (38.7%) will consider open access journals if fees are sponsored. Eighty responders (47.6%) frequently experienced access block to original articles due to subscription charges. Lack of research funding (n = 108, 64.3%), lack of research training (n = 86, 51.2%), and lack of allocated research time (n = 76, 45.2%) were the main barriers to research involvement. Improvement of research skills (n = 118, 70.2%) and having research published (n = 117, 69.6%) were the top motivational factors selected. Responders agreed that research promotes critical thinking (n = 137, 81.5%) and serve as an important educational tool (n = 134, 80.4%). However, 134 (79.8%) feel that emergency care workers need to be shown how to use research to improve clinical practice. Most agreed that insufficient emergency care research is being conducted in Africa (n = 113, 67.3%).DiscussionThere is scope to increase research involvement in emergency care in Africa, but solutions need to be find to address lack of research-related funding, training and time.

Barriers to clinical research in Africa: a quantitative and qualitative survey of clinical researchers in 27 African countries

“…This survey evaluated the attitudes and practices towards research in emergency medicine, of which 77.4% were practicing in Africa. 11 The most prominent barrier listed was lack of research funding (64.3%). Other barriers included a lack of training opportunities, research time, and research culture.…”

Dissemination patterns of scientific abstracts presented at the first and second African Conference of Emergency Medicine

“…Our survey showed that the main driving force to publish was to add to the body of knowledge. This opinion differed from a recent study that suggested that 70% of African emergency care providers get involved in research in order “to get published” [9] , above “improving clinical care and patient-centred outcomes” [9] . The most common reason for failing to publish was lack of time.…”

“…Although publication in a high impact journal is often seen as the pinnacle of dissemination, it does not necessarily reach the most appropriate audience [17] . Around half of African researchers frequently experience poor access to research due to access charges [9] . Disseminating information to the community involved should be prioritised especially as research in most African settings is only just developing.…”

“…Although access to journals might be limited in Africa, most researchers in Africa do use online bibliographic databases (e.g. PubMed) on a regular basis to access original research articles [9] . Research quality is vital for manuscript publication acceptance and publication rate of conference presentations may be seen as a surrogate indicator of the quality of the scientific abstracts presented at a conference [10] .…”

Poor Access for African Researchers to African Emergency Care Publications: A Cross-sectional Study

“…Van Hoving et al reported that 58% of African emergency care researchers struggled frequently with publication access, suggesting that local emergency care researchers are unable to make do given poor access and the significantly higher out-of-pocket expense related to publication. 14 The combination of these elements creates a perfect storm that threatens the growth and development of the specialty locally. Fortunately, article-processing fee waivers and discounts exist for low-middle and low income countries, which is likely why African authors were able to publish via open access more regularly.…”