Building Family/General Practice Research Capacity

Abstract

To promote the range of interventions for building family/general practice (family medicine) research capacity, we describe successful international examples. Such examples of interventions that build research capacity focus on diseases and illness research, as well as process research; monitor the output of research in family/general practice (family medicine); increase the number of family medicine research journals; encourage and enable research skills acquisition (including making it part of professional training); strengthen the academic base; and promote research networks and collaborations. The responsibility for these interventions lies with the government, colleges and academies, and universities. There are exciting and varied methods of building research capacity in family medicine. INTRODUCTIONI n this issue, we see how family/general practice (family medicine) research is necessary, and the different forms it might take. This article focuses on research capacity building, examining the barriers to research and the means of overcoming them.Family medicine research is important, not only for its own sake but also because it improves patient care, enables teachers to contribute to their discipline, and stimulates intellectual rigor and critical thinking.Gaps in the evidence that clinicians need in making decisions must be fi lled to best manage patient care problems. Research in family medicine will help fi ll these gaps by addressing specifi cally those areas where evidence is lacking.Good teachers contribute to the body of knowledge they teach, and research is the main avenue for this contribution. The following two barriers to this process are specifi c to family medicine: (1) family medicine academics and academic departments tend to be underfunded, and (2) there is less continuity between undergraduate and postgraduate training of family/general practitioners (family physicians), splitting the critical intellectual mass. This loss of continuity occurs structurally in several countries (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa), where the university teachers who taught the undergraduates do not provide postgraduate training. It also occurs functionally in many countries, because of the strong emphasis on hospital work in young physicians-a special problem for a discipline set in the community.Research stimulates intellectual rigor and critical thinking generally. A strong research tradition is the most direct route to enhance the intellectual rigor of the discipline and the individual physicians' critical thinking skills. Better critical thinking leads to more research, better quality care, and enhanced intellectual rigor. LEVELS OF RESEARCH ENGAGEMENTIt is worth establishing at what level family medicine wants to build research capacity, as shown in Figure 1. The highest order of users consciously seek the best available research evidence and appraise and combine it with clinical experience and patient values to inform their clinical decision making (the principals of evide...

Building research capacity in the allied health professions

“…The effectiveness of research capacity building has traditionally been measured through 'academic' outputs such as publications (Stewart-Brown and Griffiths, 1998;Campbell et al, 1999;Campbell and Longo, 2002;NAPCRGC, 2002;Del Mar and Askew, 2004), successful grant applications (NAPCRGC, 2002;Pitkethly and Sullivan, 2003;Brownlee et al, 2004) and qualifications (Lester et al, 1998). However, more recently, measures of the effectiveness of research capacity building also incorporate broader indicators that acknowledge the impact on healthcare, including outcomes for professionals such as increased job satisfaction (Brownlee et al, 2004) and the sustainability and impact of research on clinical care (Hanney et al, 2000).…”

Revisiting Practice-Based Research Networks as a Platform for Mental Health Services Research

“…In the 1950s, groups of medical practitioners in England, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa began collecting and sharing data across practices as an effort to learn from one another (e.g., Del Mar and Askew 2004). This work went largely unnoticed in the United States until the late 1970s, when family medicine physicians began to promote PBRNs within their field (e.g., Green and Hickner 2005).…”

Patient and professional attitudes towards research in general practice: the RepR qualitative study

“…Early international initiatives for developing research in general practice emerged in the 1990s, led in particular by Australia and the Netherlands [2]. In 2003, an invitational WONCA conference in Kingston, Canada, raised the question of the need for research in primary medical care to improve health care worldwide [3].…”