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Meta-Analysis
. 2018 Aug 28;16(1):86.
doi: 10.1186/s12961-018-0360-7.

A systematic review on academic research productivity of postgraduate students in low- and middle-income countries

E A Obuku  1   2   3 , J N Lavis  4   5 , A Kinengyere  6 , R Ssenono  7 , M Ocan  7 , D K Mafigiri  8   9 , F Ssengooba  10 , C Karamagi  11 , N K Sewankambo  11
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

A systematic review on academic research productivity of postgraduate students in low- and middle-income countries

E A Obuku et al. Health Res Policy Syst. .

Abstract

Background: While several individual studies addressing research productivity of post-graduate students are available, a synthesis of effective strategies to increase productivity and the determinants of productivity in low-income countries has not been undertaken. Further, whether or not this research from post-graduate students' projects was applied in evidence-informed decision-making was unknown. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of literature to identify and assess the effectiveness of approaches that increase productivity (proportion published) or the application (proportion cited) of post-graduate students' research, as well as to assess the determinants of post-graduate students' research productivity and use.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review as per our a priori published protocol, also registered in PROSPERO (CRD42016042819). We searched for published articles in PubMed/MEDLINE and the ERIC databases through to July 2017. We performed duplicate assessments for included primary studies and resolved discrepancies by consensus. Thereafter, we completed a structured narrative synthesis and, for a subset of studies, we performed a meta-analysis of the findings using both fixed and random effects approaches. We aligned our results to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement.

Results: We found 5080 articles in the PubMed (n = 3848) and ERIC (n = 1232) databases. After excluding duplicates (n = 33), we screened 5047 articles, of which 5012 were excluded. We then retrieved 44 full texts and synthesised 14, of which 4 had a high risk of bias. We did not find any studies assessing effectiveness of strategies for increasing publication nor citations of post-graduate research projects. We found an average publication proportion of 7% (95% CI 7-8%, Higgins I-squared 0.0% and Cochran's Q p < 0.01) and 23% (95% CI 17-29%, Higgins I-squared of 98.4% and Cochran's Q, p < 0.01) using fixed effects and random effects models, respectively. Two studies reported on the citation of post-graduate students' studies, at 17% (95% CI 15-19%) in Uganda and a median citation of 1 study in Turkey (IQR 0.6-2.3). Only one included study reported on the determinants of productivity or use of post-graduate students' research, suggesting that younger students were more likely to publish and cohort studies were more likely to be published.

Conclusions: We report on the low productivity of post-graduate students' research in low- and middle-income countries, including the citation of post-graduate students' research in evidence-informed health policy in low- and middle-income countries. Secondly, we did not find a single study that assessed strategies to increase productivity and use of post-graduate students' research in evidence-informed health policy, a subject for future research.

Keywords: Citation; Evidence-informed health policy; Knowledge translation; Productivity; Publication; Student.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

As this is a systematic review of literature this section is not applicable. Nonetheless, the School of Medicine Research & Ethics Committee, the Uganda National Council for Science & Technology (HS 3268) and the Office of the President of Uganda (ADM/154/212/01) approved this study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow diagram for systematic review on productivity of post-graduate students’ research
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Meta-analysis of productivity of post-graduate students’ research in low- and middle-income countries
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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