Background: There is a general perception that research is underdeveloped in rehabilitation professions. However, a PubMed search found that the growth in publications in the rehabilitation field was twice that of the general medical field. Despite this growth, another study focusing on Europe found that the proportion of articles reporting on clinical research in the rehabilitation field remained low (less than 40% of articles). This could be due to lack of teaching about research in rehabilitation schools or the late introduction of such courses.
Aims: Describe the students' perceptions of research: their desire to conduct research, the usefulness of research and research competence.
Methods: Questionnaire survey targeting all French paramedical students (speech therapy, occupational therapy, psychomotricity, audiometry, physiotherapy, orthoptics) in their final year of study in 2018-2019.
Results: Overall, 791 students completed the full survey representing a response rate of 36.3% of the students contacted. Only 34.3% of rehabilitation students were willing to conduct research despite finding it useful (98.6%). The main barrier was the preference for their core operational work (cited 444 times, representing 17.6% of citations). There was a significant relation between perceived competence and the attractiveness of research: 84% of the students not interested in research felt they were not competent to conduct research but this figure dropped to 57.6% amongst the students interested in research (OR 4.0; 95% CI 2.9-5.6). Using a multivariate analysis, we confirmed that the main incentive was feeling competent, as well as past contact with research and supervisors who promoted research work.
Conclusion: Students have little contact with research during their internships, low perceived competence and, consequently, little desire to conduct research.
Keywords: Paramedicals; research; students; survey.