Perceived attitudes of the importance and barriers to research amongst Rwandan interns and pediatric residents - a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Globally, interns and residents face significant challenges with respect to research activity. Despite this, they are motivated and have an interest in undertaking research. To date, there has been no research regarding the perceived attitudes towards research activities amongst Rwandan residents and interns. OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to describe the perceived attitudes regarding the educational benefits and barriers surrounding research activity amongst interns and residents, and to identify any differences between these groups. The secondary objective was to describe the research methods used by interns and residents in Rwanda. METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive study of interns and pediatric trainees at the University of Rwanda. An online questionnaire using Likert scale questions was sent electronically to eligible participants. RESULTS: A total of sixty participants (38 interns and 22 pediatric residents) responded to the survey. Both groups acknowledged the educational importance of undertaking research, with interns reporting this more than residents. Both groups identified the following as barriers to research: faculty lacking time to mentor, lack of funding, lack of statistical support, and lack of faculty experienced in conducting research. Interns (87%) were much more likely to have undertaken retrospective research than pediatric residents (14%). Few interns or residents submitted their research for publication (27%). CONCLUSIONS: Both interns and residents understood the importance of research, but many barriers exist. Increasing the time available for experienced faculty members to supervise research is challenging due to low faculty numbers. Novel solutions will need to be found as well as expanding the time for trainees to perform research.

Write-up and dissemination of undergraduate and postgraduate research at the University of Rwanda: a cross-sectional study.

INTRODUCTION: Research is essential in all areas of health development. However, medical students and residents frequently lack the time and training on performing research. This is especially prevalent in resource-limited settings. We aimed to compare the word counts of undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations with published projects in Rwanda, and to identify the proportion of postgraduate pediatric research projects that have been published since 2012. METHODS: Retrospective, cross-sectional study of undergraduate and postgraduate research dissertations at the University of Rwanda. Dissertations were then compared to randomly selected published papers of Rwandan research. Each IMRaD (Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion) section word count was compared using Student's t-test. RESULTS: 19/190 (10%) undergraduate dissertations and 22/41 (54%) postgraduate dissertations, were available in electronic format for word-count analysis. The mean total word count for postgraduate dissertations (5163 words) was significantly longer (p<0.001) than the randomly selected peer-reviewed journal articles (2959 words). Each section of the IMRaD structure of postgraduate dissertations was significantly longer than those of the control group. Undergraduates used a similar number of words to published papers, but used significantly more tables and figures. Of the 41 postgraduate dissertations, only four (10%), were published in peer-reviewed journals. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to assess the writing style of Rwandan medical students and pediatric postgraduate residents. A simple step to increase dissemination of research findings would be for institutions to modify academic regulations so that students write-up in manuscript form rather than dissertation format.

RMJ research series: literature searching

MY EXPERIENCE:Christian is a year 5 medical student in Rwanda embarking on his first research project.I had never undertaken a formal literature search until my 5th year of medical studies, I was therefore very much challenged by how rigorous it was. For the fist time, I had to use websites like PubMed, Cochrane to find the information I needed. This replaced my usual sources of information which had been Wikipedia and Google. I then had to learn how to use a reference manager, Mendeley, to store and cite the papers I found. I was using it and so many terms I hadn't heard of before. It was all unfamiliar to me.I found it really difficult to find relevant papers in PubMed and because of the scarcity of papers and poor internet connection I found it really discouraging.Organizing articles and summarizing them was the hardest of all. Multiple pages of conference reports, articles and surveys all were to be transformed into relevant systematically coordinated summary.As a solution to these problems I used the Mendeley literature search which contains an abundance of articles. I then hand-searched the bibliographies of the articles I had found. To overcome problems of internet connection I would work in places with strong Wi-Fi and spend the whole day nonstop searching and downloading everything ready for offline reading and reviewing.So, as a result, my research project got quicker, more organized, more comprehensible and I found this really satisfying