Encouraging primary care research: evaluation of a one-year, doctoral clinical epidemiology research course

Figures & data

Table 1. Topics and aims of the 12 modules of the research course.

Topic	Aims
1. Approaches to health care research	To understand what health means to different stakeholders: patients, clinicians, health policy-makers To learn how the approach to research and selection of study design depends on the research question
2. Research question	To learn how to formulate research questions To use the PICO (patient, intervention, control, outcome) thinking in research question formulation
3. Systematic reviews	To learn the process of conducting a systematic review To understand the purpose of systematic reviewing and whether a systematic review might fit into your research work
4. Planning and designing a study	To learn about different clinical study designs:   (a) randomized clinical trials   (b) cohort and case-control designs   (c) qualitative methods   (d) evaluation of diagnostic test properties. To learn the strengths and weaknesses of different designs To learn to apply different designs
5. Sampling	To learn about sampling methods in quantitative and qualitative studies To understand the concepts of internal and external validity and their importance in deciding on sampling strategies To understand the strengths and weaknesses of different sampling methods
6. Measurements	To learn how to choose outcome measures Strengths and weaknesses of outcome measures
7. Burden of disease	To learn basic epidemiological terms such as prevalence, incidence, mortality, case fatality rate, adjustment To learn to describe the burden of disease To be able to calculate and interpret measures of disease frequency
8. Interventions	To learn the basics of studying interventions To understand the meaning of effectiveness and how to measure it To understand the strengths and weaknesses of controlled trials
9. Causalities	To understand the challenges of studying causation, that association does not imply causation, and how to study risk factors To understand the difference between strength of an association and its statistical significance
10. Diagnostic studies	To learn about the rational use of diagnostic and screening tests To understand the clinical usefulness of diagnostic or screening tests
11. Health technology assessment	To learn about health technology assessment and the way it utilizes different research approaches on a health care method
12. Closing	To present your own research to an external reviewer To learn to join an academic discussion

Table 2. PhDs in the field of primary health care in Finland between 2000 and 2014.

	All
	(n = 104)
	n (%)
	Women	62 (65)
Mean age at defence	47.4 (range 29–71 years)
Medical doctors	69 (66)
GPs	52 (50)
Geriatricians	3 (3)
Other specialists	8 (8)
Non specialists	6 (6)
Nurses	15 (14.5)
Physiotherapists	2 (2)
Dentists	4 (4)
Psychologists	1 (1)
MSc, not registered as health care professional	13 (12.5)
University of Helsinki	36 (35)
University of Turku	18 (17.5)
University of Tampere	22 (21)
University of Eastern Finland	13 (12.5)
University of Oulu	15 (14.5)

Table 3. Characteristics of the research course participant 2007 to 2012.

Cohort	Women,	GPs,	PhDs by 2014,
	n	n	n (year)		Total number of publications by 2014
	Year 2007, n = 11	7	8	4 (2012, 2013, 2014, 2014)	25
Year 2009, n = 11	10	3	1 (2014)	22
Year 2010, n = 13	12	5	2 (2012, 2014)	19
Year 2012, n = 11	8	4	–	13
All, n = 46	37	20	7	79

Table 4. Open answers of the research course participants to question: “How did you get interested in research?”

Theme	Citations
Personal and professional growth	“My career has been about development and projects. Studying and research give good and interesting support to that.”
	“I haven’t done research or published anything but I think research stimulates my thinking and refreshes me. Maybe I will still publish something when I have time.”	“Hard to say. Research has always interested me, however it wasn’t possible until now.”
	“Research was a gate for me to the university teaching jobs.”
Curiosity to know more and produce new knowledge
	“I had a motivation to go deeper into things.”
	“Because of my daily work. There was not enough research evidence in my topic of interest.”
	“I’d like to perform cost-effective and evidence-based medicine and develop methods to assess the quality and effectiveness of my work.”	“During the studies of physiotherapy I realized how little we truly  know of things.”
	As a counterbalance to clinical work	“As a counterbalance to the daily work. I wanted to know deeper why and how.”	“I think research and clinical work complement each other.”
A tempting opportunity		“At the workplace there was a suitable project and my boss encouraged me.”
	“An inspiring opportunity at the workplace and previous interest.”	“During one PhD celebration party I got an offer of a topic.”
	External inspiration	“I found an inspiring supervisor.”
“Because of the example of my supervisor and the interest that aroused in clinical work.”		“The research work of my spouse and friends inspired me.”

Figure 1. Survey responses to possible motivations for research on a scale from 0 to 5, with 0 = not important at all and 5 = very important.

Figure 2. Survey responses: assessment of different components of the research course on a scale from 0 to 5, with 0 = not important at all and 5 = very important.

Figure 3. Number of published papers and PhDs by the research course participants by year, 2007–2014.