A mixed studies literature review of family physicians' participation in research

Abstract

Background and objectives: Family physicians' recruitment and adherence in research are challenging. This mixed studies literature review sought to identify the extent of family physicians' participation in primary health care research, as well as facilitators and inhibitors of their recruitment and subsequent protocol adherence in research projects.

Methods: We searched Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, and BioMed Central Medical Research Methodology by using an explicit strategy. Sixty-two articles met predetermined selection criteria. Using a mixed method approach, we performed a content analysis of the results published in these articles to synthesize factors affecting family physicians' participation in research.

Results: Recruitment rates varied between 2% and 81%. The most frequent types of participation requested were completion of questionnaires (48%) and recruitment of patients (37%). We found that family physicians' personal/professional factors mainly affected recruitment, practice/patient-related issues mainly affected adherence, and study protocol characteristics facilitated both recruitment and adherence of family physicians in research.

Conclusions: This review provides a synthesis of knowledge about factors mediating family physicians' roles in research. Our findings offer material for researchers to create checklists to help create and operationalize protocols that respect local clinical and research realities.