These course elements were commissioned by the Department of Physiotherapy at the University of Patras as part of the Postgraduate Research Planning Module in their new MSc in Therapeutic Exercise. I was invited to provide specialised training to contribute to the development of the department’s research output.
Course outcomes:
- Understand the role and cycle of research from the researcher to clinical application
- Learn to frame the research objective in relation to the literature
- Formulate a useful research questions; understand practical issues and where there is a need for further research.
- Familiarisation with the literature; steps to conducting a literature review; critical appraisal of sources; understand clinically applicable research; traps and methodology issues.
- Familiarisation with research database usage, search methods, clinical vs. theoretical or minimal research applicability.
Elements covered:
- Practical application of evidence-based medicine
- Using evidence in the clinical environment
- Models of clinical reasoning
- Introduction to the Randomised Controlled Trial and the Case Report
- Tools for structuring research project
- Tools for evaluating research project
- Critical appraisal of original research studies.
- Using the literature.
- The international scene of Allied Health Professions and hot topics in Manual Therapy
- Introduction to scientific publishing
- ICMJE guidelines, COPE guidelines, and manuscript checklists.
- How to write an Abstract; Introduction; Discussion; Interpretation; Conclusion
Results reporting, practical aspects of research design and execution, and biostatistics were covered by colleagues with the requisite expertise.
Feedback:
Feedback from colleagues and students was excellent. This type of material is rarely taught in a formal format, and students are usually given succinct guidelines and left to work out many of these elements on their own. Dedication of curriculum time focusing specifically on research development skills was an innovative decision on the part of the Department heads who felt that staff and students alike would benefit from formalised in-depth training in these elements. The seminars were warmly received and will run again next year.
