Abstract
Background: There is concern for the international community that research findings are not utilized by health policy-makers to the extent that they could be. The review of literature revealed that most of the findings from this field are based on studies from developed countries, and relatively little is known about these factors in developing countries. Moreover, although a considerable number of health related research is conducted in Jeddah Governorate every year, less is put into consideration. This situation might have negative implications on the implementation of research in the future.
Objectives: The current study aimed at identifying enabling factors and determining barriers among health policy makers toward utilization of national medical research' recommendations in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia, 2010.
Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in MOH hospitals and PHCC sectors and private hospitals and dispensaries. Self administered questionnaires were distributed to 210 general managers and medical directors of MOH governmental and private hospitals plus MOH PHCC supervisors and only medical directors of private dispensaries. For convenience, two versions of the questionnaire were used; Arabic & English. It included 3 parts: socio-demographic data, enabling factors and potential barriers for utilization of research' recommendations. Data were collected by 3 trained data collectors. It was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16. Ethical considerations were ensured.
Results: 19% of the respondents addressed that they received recommendations from previously conducted research while only 12.4% indicated that there was previous research conducted in their institution. Moreover, 23.3% pointed out that they find solutions for their problems in the received recommendations. It was noted that 51.9% of the respondents shared in previous research, and an equal percentage reported that they conducted research. Although 95.7% of the respondents believe that conduction of research is important, nevertheless, a lower percentage (83.8%) of them expressed that they wish to conduct research. The top three barriers reported by the respondents included a pile of situations pertinent to the staff working in the institute such as lack of their awareness to research, being isolated from knowledgeable colleagues with whom they wish to discuss the research and lack of support from other staff in implementation. On the other side, it was remarked that the least potential barriers for conducting research perceived by the respondents were related to difficulty in understanding statistical analyses, methodological design and inability to justify conclusions drawn from the research.
Conclusion: Among the interviewed health policy-makers there was a gap between the perceived importance of the research from one side and its conduction and utilization of its recommendations on the other side. The reported barriers were mainly remediable as being attributed chiefly to modifiable subjective factors driven from the lack of knowledge and experience about research methodology. In addition, the insufficient time perceived as a barrier reflects the vision of the studied institute which were not focusing in part of it on conduction of research and incorporating it in its plan and regular routine work.