Narayan Gaurang, Rajagopal Anandaraj, Moharana Lopamudra
Department of Community Medicine, Indira Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, Pondicherry, India.
J Educ Health Promot. 2023 Jan 31;12:33. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_829_22. eCollection 2023.
Biomedical research is not given adequate attention during undergraduation due to the failure of the medical curriculum to motivate the students to take up research, teach the research methodology, and emphasize the scope of research in the future. Our objective was to study the perceptions of medical undergraduate students toward biomedical research and to explore the facilitators and barriers to biomedical research.
This was an explanatory, sequential, mixed-method study. Consenting medical undergraduate students, irrespective of their previous contribution to research, were interviewed by a pretested questionnaire concerning biomedical research, its barriers, and facilitators. For the qualitative component, two focused group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among students in the nonclinical and clinical phases. Data were analyzed and expressed as percentages. Thematic manual content analysis of the transcribed manuscripts was performed.
This study included 553 participants. Only 5.52% had previous experience undertaking research. Self-interest and acquiring deeper knowledge were identified as drivers. Lack of motivation, proper guidance, and training in research methodology was found to be the barrier among 90% of the subjects. The FGD reflected the perceptions of students and variations in their ideologies toward taking up research.
It becomes important to analyze the factors that promote or avert a student from taking up research. A thorough investigation in this regard will be helpful for future cohorts of medical students and will impact their decisions on taking up research and in seeking a career in research-based fields.
由于医学课程未能激发学生从事研究的积极性、教授研究方法以及强调未来研究的范围，生物医学研究在本科阶段未得到足够重视。我们的目标是研究医学本科生对生物医学研究的看法，并探索生物医学研究的促进因素和障碍。
这是一项解释性、序列性、混合方法研究。我们通过一份关于生物医学研究、其障碍和促进因素的预测试问卷，对同意参与的医学本科生进行访谈，无论他们之前对研究的贡献如何。对于定性部分，在非临床和临床阶段的学生中进行了两次焦点小组讨论（FGD）。对数据进行分析并以百分比表示。对手稿转录本进行主题手动内容分析。
本研究包括553名参与者。只有5.52%的人有过从事研究的经历。自我兴趣和获取更深入的知识被确定为驱动因素。90%的受试者认为缺乏动力、适当的指导和研究方法培训是障碍。焦点小组讨论反映了学生的看法以及他们对从事研究的观念差异。
分析促进或阻碍学生从事研究的因素变得很重要。在这方面进行全面调查将有助于未来的医学生群体，并将影响他们关于从事研究以及在基于研究的领域寻求职业的决定。
