Medical research engagement among resident doctors in Nigeria: assessing knowledge, attitudes, and barriers in a public and private tertiary hospital in Nigeria.

BACKGROUND

Medical research is an essential aspect of the training of resident doctors and is required by postgraduate medical colleges in Nigeria as part of the fulfilment of fellowship awards. However, research participation among resident doctors in Nigeria is low, despite seemingly high interest in research among resident doctors. The objective of our study is to examine the knowledge, attitudes, practices, and barriers related to medical research among resident doctors in a public and private tertiary care in Nigeria.

METHODOLOGY

The study is a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out between November 2023 and December 2023 in a public tertiary hospital and a private tertiary hospital in Nigeria. A total of 352 participants were recruited for the study-303 from the public tertiary hospital and 49 from the private tertiary hospital. The obtained data were analysed using SPSS Statistics version 26 (IBM Corp. Released 2019. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.). The significance level was set at P < 0.005.

RESULTS

The majority (63.92%) of the participants had spent between 2 and 5 years in residency training. A total of 57.67% had participated in research other than dissertations, while 35.23% had participated in research publications. The majority (48.58%) of participants assessed their research knowledge to be fair, whereas 2.56% assessed their knowledge to be excellent. Multivariate analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between self-reported knowledge of research and the number of research publications (adjusted ρ = 0.332; P < 0.001). The leading (60.8%) barrier to research participation among resident doctors in Nigeria was lack of time due to stress/pressure of the residency program. An overwhelming majority (95.17%) of resident doctors have shown interest in research participation, and up to 75.87% even want it to be mandatory for all resident doctors in Nigeria.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that despite limited participation, resident doctors have a positive attitude towards research. However, there is a struggle to translate this enthusiasm into practical application; hence, there is a need to address the barriers to effective participation of resident doctors in medical research.