Barriers to research from viewpoint of faculty members of Lorestan university of medical sciences

Research is an active and well-organized procedure to discover, explain and review phenomena, events and hypotheses. The first step to organize matter of research in society is the find of a proper perception of existent abilities and facilities, as well as finding out weaknesses and strengths in research, so the present study was carried out to determine barriers to research from viewpoint of faculty members of Lorestan university of medical sciences. This cross-sectional study was carried out to determine barriers to research from viewpoint of faculty members of Lorestan university of medical sciences in 2008. All faculty members were our subjects. Data gathering tool was a four-part questionnaire, approved by valid scientific sources, designed based on Likert scale. Questionnaires were distributed among faculty members and at most the data of 93 questionnaires were analyzed by use of independent t-tests and variance analysis. concerning the personal barriers shortage of time because of excessive teaching (32. 2%) and social and executive responsibilities (21. 4%) were the most, and lack of personal interest in research (60. 7%) and having no skill and mastery in scientific paper and proposal writing (50. 6%) were generally the least personal barriers. But about organizational barriers severity to approve research projects by the research meeting, administrative restrictive regulations (49. 2%), long procedure for a research proposal to be cheared by the related committee and deficiency of research privileges for the researchers’ promotion (39. 1%) were the most organizational barriers, and difficulties of results statistical deduction, ethical limitations (34. 9%) and compulsion for researchers to use a special framework and method (27. 9%) were among the least organizational barriers. Meanwhile no significant difference observed between mean score of personal barriers among faculties while there was a significant difference between mean score of organizational barriers. Regarding the essential role of knowledge and research, which are among the most important features of look on future, governments, organizations and nations should have more and better perception of change and future, because we will live and work in a future which is quite different from today. Thus to reach a productive research future, it seems necessary to remove above mentioned barriers.