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Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries

Background There is a need for high quality research to improve perioperative patient care in Africa. The aim of this study was to understand the particular barriers to clinical research in this environment. Methods Electronic survey of African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS) investigators, including...

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Main Author: Conradie, Aletta
Other Authors: Duys, Rowan
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine 2020
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access_status_str Open Access
author Conradie, Aletta
author2 Duys, Rowan
author_browse Conradie, Aletta
Duys, Rowan
author_facet Duys, Rowan
Conradie, Aletta
author_sort Conradie, Aletta
collection Thesis
description Background There is a need for high quality research to improve perioperative patient care in Africa. The aim of this study was to understand the particular barriers to clinical research in this environment. Methods Electronic survey of African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS) investigators, including 29 quantitative Likert scale questions and eight qualitative questions with subsequent thematic analysis. Protocol compliant and non-compliant countries were compared according to the WHO statistics for research and development, health workforce data and world internet statistics. Results Responses were received from 134/418 invited researchers in 24/25 (96%) participating countries, and three non-participating countries. Barriers included the lack of a dedicated research team (47.7%), reliable internet access (32.6%), staff skilled in research (31.8%) and team commitment (23.8%). Protocol compliant countries had significantly more physicians per 1000 population (4 vs 0.9 p<0.01), internet penetration (38% vs 28% p=0.01) and published clinical trials (1461 vs 208 p<0.01) compared to non-compliant countries. Facilitators of research included establishing a research culture (86.9%), simple data collection tools (80%) and ASOS team interaction (77.9%). Most participants are interested in future research (93.8%). Qualitative data reiterated human resource, financial resource, and regulatory barriers. However, the desire to contribute to an African collaboration producing relevant data to improve patient outcomes, was expressed strongly by the ASOS investigators. Conclusions: Barriers to successful participation in ASOS related to resource limitations and not the motivation of clinician investigators. Practical solutions to individual barriers may increase the success of multi-centre perioperative research in Africa.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:33.643Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2020
publishDateRange 2020
publishDateSort 2020
publisher Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine
publisherStr Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31490 Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries Conradie, Aletta Duys, Rowan Biccard, Bruce M Africa Biomedical Research Research Personnel Surveys and Questionnaires Background There is a need for high quality research to improve perioperative patient care in Africa. The aim of this study was to understand the particular barriers to clinical research in this environment. Methods Electronic survey of African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS) investigators, including 29 quantitative Likert scale questions and eight qualitative questions with subsequent thematic analysis. Protocol compliant and non-compliant countries were compared according to the WHO statistics for research and development, health workforce data and world internet statistics. Results Responses were received from 134/418 invited researchers in 24/25 (96%) participating countries, and three non-participating countries. Barriers included the lack of a dedicated research team (47.7%), reliable internet access (32.6%), staff skilled in research (31.8%) and team commitment (23.8%). Protocol compliant countries had significantly more physicians per 1000 population (4 vs 0.9 p<0.01), internet penetration (38% vs 28% p=0.01) and published clinical trials (1461 vs 208 p<0.01) compared to non-compliant countries. Facilitators of research included establishing a research culture (86.9%), simple data collection tools (80%) and ASOS team interaction (77.9%). Most participants are interested in future research (93.8%). Qualitative data reiterated human resource, financial resource, and regulatory barriers. However, the desire to contribute to an African collaboration producing relevant data to improve patient outcomes, was expressed strongly by the ASOS investigators. Conclusions: Barriers to successful participation in ASOS related to resource limitations and not the motivation of clinician investigators. Practical solutions to individual barriers may increase the success of multi-centre perioperative research in Africa. 2020-03-05T13:15:06Z 2020-03-05T13:15:06Z 2019 2020-03-05T06:59:29Z Master Thesis Masters MMed http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31490 eng application/pdf Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine Faculty of Health Sciences
spellingShingle Africa
Biomedical Research
Research Personnel
Surveys and Questionnaires
Conradie, Aletta
Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries
title_full Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries
title_fullStr Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries
title_full_unstemmed Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries
title_short Barriers to clinical research in Africa, a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 African countries
title_sort barriers to clinical research in africa a quantitative and qualitative survey of 27 african countries
topic Africa
Biomedical Research
Research Personnel
Surveys and Questionnaires
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31490
work_keys_str_mv AT conradiealetta barrierstoclinicalresearchinafricaaquantitativeandqualitativesurveyof27africancountries