Restrictive Factors in Medical Research in the Viewpoint of Students of Medical Sciences University of Semnan

Acquiring knowledge by university students and increasing their participation in research activities can provide a safe pathway for promotion of creative talents in productivity in science and at higher levels, the development of the country. This study was conducted with the aim of determining the preventive factors toward student’s interest in research in the field of medical sciences at the Medical Sciences University of Semnan in 2014. In this cross - sectional study, 293 students who were at their second year or above, were randomly chosen. The research tools were a questionnaire with the topic of demography and a researcher-made 4-choices test containing 25 questions comparable with 5-choices scale test of Likret to determine the confining factors affecting the students’ interest and enthusiasm in medical research. Each question had 5 options arranged from a “weakly agreeable” to “highly agreeable” scale. They were scored from 1 to 5 with the order of: very low, low, medium, high and very high. The items were classified in four areas of: personal factors (5 questions), motivational (7 questions), research facilities (8 questions) and structural factors and utilities (5 questions). The student’s point of view were significantly different in the severity of barriers within the four areas (P=0.033), So that the personal obstacles seemed to be more important. The most important barrier factor affecting student research activities in the personal area was" lack of enough knowledge about the research topics "; in the area of motivational factors was" not being encouraged to do the research by the university "and" emphasizing on the pivotal training instead of research-based studies"; in the area of research facilities was," not quite enough access to the scientific journals and references and also research specialists at the University", also " lack of appropriate research methodology workshops for students " and finally in the administrative area was the “long process of student research project approval process ".There was not any significant differences in response to questions in any of the areas, between male or female, member and non-members at the research committee and also between students with different score averages in the two last semesters (P >0.05). But within the area of research facilities, students’ point of view were significantly different (p<0.001). This area was specifically considered to be more of an obstacle for medical students than the others. In order to make medical sciences students more interested in the research area it is important to motivate them by giving them a role in the research projects, teaching them research methodology and to shorten the project approval process for student research projects. This way may lead to flourishing their creative talents in science and promote the proper scientific research in the country.