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Assessing research capacity in Victoria's south‐west health service providers
Author(s) -
Gill Stephen D.,
Gwini Stella May,
Otmar Renee,
Lane Stephen E.,
Quirk Frances,
Fuscaldo Giuliana
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
australian journal of rural health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.48
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1440-1584
pISSN - 1038-5282
DOI - 10.1111/ajr.12558
Subject(s) - nursing , job satisfaction , capacity building , work (physics) , medicine , service (business) , focus group , psychology , business , political science , marketing , social psychology , mechanical engineering , law , engineering
Objective To investigate the research interest, capacity and culture in individuals, teams and health organisations across south‐western Victoria. Design Cross‐sectional survey. Setting Eight public health services in the south‐western region of Victoria. Participants All staff were invited to participate. Intervention Hospital staff survey. Main outcome measure The Research Capacity and Culture tool. Results The survey was completed by 776 staff including nurses, allied health staff and doctors. Half of the respondents were currently involved in research, while most wanted to be more involved. Respondents reported having moderate research skills and success at individual, team and organisation levels. Women and nurses reported having lower skills than comparable groups. Motivators for undertaking research were skill development (increased job satisfaction and brain stimulation) while the most commonly selected barriers were lack of time, other work taking priority and lack of funding. Conclusion Health organisations in regional and rural Victoria could harness opportunities to enable staff participation in research by supporting identified strengths, addressing barriers and providing “permission” for staff to get involved in research. Efforts to improve research capacity among women and nurses could lead to the greatest overall improvement in organisations' research capacity and output—and translation of evidence into practice.