An evaluation of the 'Designated Research Team' approach to building research capacity in primary care

Abstract

Background: This paper describes an evaluation of an initiative to increase the research capability of clinical groups in primary and community care settings in a region of the United Kingdom. The 'designated research team' (DRT) approach was evaluated using indicators derived from a framework of six principles for research capacity building (RCB) which include: building skills and confidence, relevance to practice, dissemination, linkages and collaborations, sustainability and infrastructure development.

Learning to navigate and enriching the research process by engaging in a collaborative practice research capacity strategy

“…[15] Support for mentorship and targeted team-based education for building research capacity has been reported in other studies. [11,16] In our study, the finding around the key role of the unit manager supporting their local research team is consistent with other work that identified managers to positively influence the unit culture and actively support research engagement. [4] Participating teams described the value of having an interprofessional collaborative team to work on the research project adding to the evolving literature base on the value of CPBR.…”

“…A team-based approach to build research capacity was reported to be effective in developing linkages and collaborations with participating members in primary care. [16] The challenges experienced by study participants were consistent with the literature including not have sufficient protected time [6,14,[20][21][22] or resources (e.g. budget, research staff).…”

“…Our study demonstrated the value of providing opportunity for nurses and health disciplines to engage in CPBR and undertake a project relevant to clinical practice that adds to the body of knowledge on the value of collaborative practice based research capacity building strategies [6][7][8][15][16][17] and communities of practice. [22,27,28] Despite the valuing of the experience, challenges emerged that necessitate future efforts to provide support for nurses and health disciplines participating in research capacity building strategies.…”

“…[14] Further, despite efforts to build research capacity through a variety of initiatives (e.g. educational programs, fellowships, funding), [6][7][8][15][16][17] nurses and health care professionals continue to report lacking skills and confidence to conduct research due to minimal or no experience and not having enough time to participate in research. [1,6,12,14,[18][19][20][21] In this context, an Academic Health Sciences Center (AHSC) developed and hosted a competitive grants competition with a comprehensive learning approach as part of a larger strategy aimed at building CPBR.…”

Building research capacity in south-west Sydney through a Primary and Community Health Research Unit

“…Disciplines within primary and community health, such as general practice, nursing, midwifery and allied health, have a low research skills base and may lack the research infrastructure needed to develop knowledge for evidence-based practice (Ilott 2004;Cooke et al 2008). Several strategies to build research capacity in these disciplines have been reported in the UK , the USA (Frontera et al 2006) and Australia (Askew et al 2008;McIntyre et al 2011).…”