Challenges and facilitators for health practitioners and academics engaging in collaborative research and publication: A systematic review / Herausforderungen und Förderfaktoren für gemeinsame Forschung und wissenschaftliche Publikation von Angehörigen verschiedener Gesundheitsberufe aus Praxis und Forschung: ein systematischer Review

The process of collaboration and participation in research and publishing is complex and depends on many prerequisites (King et al., 2015). These fundamentals can include the following: the level of research-oriented training; training in (academic) writing; the gratification systems for academics and thus the rewards for engaging in practitioner-based research; educational policy and epistemic beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing (Markauskaite & Goodyear, 2014). We structured this review within the framework of professional knowledge, EBP (Sackett, 1996) and the relationship of these concepts with the utilisation of research in practice.

The twenty-first century requires strong connections between the production of knowledge and its use in professional work. Scientific excellence is sought (Markauskaite & Goodyear, 2014) to meet patient demands for increasing quality, efficiency, safety and satisfaction in health care. The link between professional knowledge base and academic knowledge production to provide resources for meeting the challenges of practice is clearly recognised (Abbott, 1988; Friedson, 2001). The drive for practice settings to adopt and utilise robust research knowledge and the ability of education to keep pace with rapid changes in practice are illuminated in the literature from the health professions (Benner et al., 2010; Sullivan, 2005; Staykova, 2012). Moreover, knowledge creation, innovation and transformation capacities are important qualities of successful practitioners as well as organisations (Engeström, 2008). In relation to health professions, professional competencies can only remain current if practitioners continually engage with new knowledge (Eraut, 1994; Friedson, 2001). Furthermore, practitioners need to demonstrate professional maturity to challenge accepted boundaries of practice and initiate new developments (McGee and Castledine, 2003).

EBP, as a concept, provides a basis for making decisions on approaches to health care by integrating the best available research evidence to inform practice. This concept continues to receive significant support as it has over the past two decades (Sackett, 1996). Research evidence is integrated with practitioners’ expertise and is considered alongside available resources and the characteristics, needs, values and preferences of those receiving care. EBP is widely accepted in the health professions as a way to establish a research culture for professional knowledge building and practice transformation, drawing together academics and practitioners alike. However, despite best intentions and acceptance of EBP, in practice, the objectives of this concept often lack broad implementation across disciplines and health organisations.

We conducted a comprehensive literature search of diverse databases (Figure 1) investigating the disciplines of nursing, other health professions, health management, psychology and sociology. We also performed manual searches to minimise the risk of missed studies due to electronic selection from the use of predetermined search terms (Brunton et al., 2012).

Figure 1

The initial keywords included health practitioners, research competencies, development, research–practice nexus, facilitators and barriers and publishing. Synonyms of these words were then determined and further arranged based on the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms to identify the root terms. These root terms incorporated the following: health practitioners/professionals (non-academic); research outcomes, research–practice nexus/research–professional practice integration; collaboration with academics/clinical and university collaboration; facilitators and barriers; publishing/publications/ dissemination of findings/communication of research evidence/writing for publications. Using the terms in various combinations yielded a substantial number of studies, as described in the following section.

In the first stage, we read the titles and keywords of the articles and selected 172 studies that matched the review question. In the second stage, we read the abstracts to consider content alongside the inclusion criteria, as presented in Table 1.

When the search was limited to defined criteria, the number of studies decreased substantially. Electronic searches showed that many studies employed the same terms but did not share the same focus (Gough et al., 2012). For those abstracts considered relevant to the review question, we retrieved the full-text articles for further reading. After excluding duplicate articles and evaluating the abstracts, 73 full-text articles remained.

After a comprehensive examination of the full-text articles, we compiled a list of the final studies to be included: 20 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included for critical appraisal. A flowchart providing a detailed illustration of the search trail is shown in Figure 1.

The application of exclusion criteria eliminated non-research articles as well as many studies with limited focus upon practitioner–academic collaboration in research and/or writing for publication.

Through further reading, we derived criteria for identifying and evaluating studies (Long et al., 2002). Ten highly pertinent questions from Long et al.’s evaluation tool for mixed method designs were applied to the reviewed studies (Table 2).

Further, we summarised the process of judging rigor through the epistemic quality and relevance of the studies following the Transparency, Accuracy, Purposivity, Utility, Propriety, Accessibility and Specificity (TAPUPA) framework (Pawson et al., 2003). The included studies were summarised to provide detailed information on methods and findings and their specific strengths and limitations (Appendix 1). In the relatively large body of literature that we searched, the need for practitioners to undertake writing for publication was rarely stated. The selection process ultimately resulted in 20 articles being included in the final review.

Performing a configurative review principally means to arrange findings from primary research studies to answer the review question. The primary studies identified in configurative reviews can be heterogeneous and involve interpretive analysis. We applied thematic synthesis to bring together the findings from these studies that used different research designs (Thomas et al., 2012) using the following steps:

The 20 studies were conducted in the developed countries of Australia, the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Sweden. The clearly stated aims were strengths in all identified studies. Direct mention of publication or writing for publication occurred in seven studies: Finch et al. (2013); King et al. (2015); Koivula et al. (2011); Metcalf et al. (2010); Murray and Newton (2009); Probst et al. (2015) and Stephens et al. (2009), although this was explored in detail in one study only (King et al., 2015).

Ten studies have defined theoretical/conceptual foundations indicating a wide range of approaches: Bedoee (2011); Behar-Horenstein and Johnson (2010); Dupin et al. (2015); Finch et al. (2013); Gonzalez et al. (2012); Hauck et al. (2015); King et al. (2015); Koivula et al. (2011); Pager et al. (2012) and (Stephens et al., 2009). The remaining ten studies used the relevant literature as background for their research: Evans et al. (2013); Finch et al. (2015); Gerrish et al. (2011); Jansen and Hoeijmakers (2013); Janssen et al. (2015); Metcalf et al. (2010); Murray and Newton (2009); Probst et al. (2015); Rickard et al. (2011) and (Ulrich et al., 2015).

The types of research design used were clearly detailed in 13 of the studies. In total, eight studies used qualitative methods: Bedoee (2011); Behar-Horenstein and Johnson (2010); Dupin et al. (2015); Evans et al. (2013); Finch et al. (2015); Gonzalez et al. (2012); Hauck et al. (2015) and Murray and Newton (2009); seven were quantitative: Finch et al. (2013); Koivula et al. (2011); Metcalf et al. (2010); Pager et al. (2012); Probst et al. (2015); Stephens et al. (2009) and Ulrich et al. (2015) and five combined quantitative and qualitative methods: Gerrish et al. (2011); Jansen and Hoeijmakers (2013); Janssen et al. (2015), King et al. (2015) and Rickard et al. (2011). The preferred methods for data collection were fixed response and self-completed questionnaires. Six studies including Janssen et al. (2015); King et al. (2015); Metcalf et al. (2010); Pager et al. (2012), Probst et al. (2015) and Stephens et al. (2009) used standardised or developed instruments only. Five studies used a combination of questionnaire and qualitative methods: Gerrish et al. (2011); Jansen and Hoeijmakers (2013); Janssen et al. (2015), King et al. (2015) and Rickard et al. (2011). Six studies used a face-to-face interview only: Bedoee (2011); Dupin et al. (2015); Evans et al. (2013); Finch et al. (2015); Gonzalez et al. (2012) and Murray and Newton (2009). The sample sizes in the reviewed studies ranged from six to 40 in the qualitative studies and from six to 855 in the studies based on quantitative methodology. Although the review drew on studies including health practitioners in general, nurses were the main study participants (1,305 across eight of the studies).

The overall quality of studies included in the review was good with all studies meeting the requirements of the TAPUPA framework (Pawson et al., 2003). There were some limitations in relation to reporting of ethics information in the studies by Bedoee (2011), Gonzalez et al. (2012), Jansen and Hoeijmakers (2013), Koivula et al. (2011), Metcalf et al. (2010) and Pager et al. (2012). Metcalf et al. (2010) and Murray and Newton (2009) lacked details in terms of clear methods and process of analysis.

All empirical studies addressed ethical concerns. The qualitative studies provided more detail on the ethical issues than the quantitative studies, particularly concerning the methods of data gathering and the role of the researcher. Nine studies indicated financial support for their projects. No conflicts of interest were declared in any of the studies.

The four major themes captured the facilitators and barriers to health practitioners working collaboratively on research with academics and subsequently publishing their findings. These themes included practitioners, academics, institutions and professional demands. Numerical evidence of the studies associated with each of the themes is summarised in Table 3.

The quantitative distribution of the themes and subcategories allowed us to visualise the data and the relationship between the themes according to the frequency of identified codes (MAXQD11 software, 2015). The software indicated the percentage of codes related to each theme; the findings are shown in Figure 2. In the following sections, we have synthesised the four themes that emerged from the findings of the reviewed studies.

Figure 2

The term “practitioner” describes the health professional implementing care, such as nurses, medical staff or allied health professionals. This theme received the most attention in the reviewed studies. It focused on the practitioners’ need to combine professional competencies with interest, motivation, commitment and confidence to perform research. Allied health professionals reported ambivalence about their involvement (55%) and personal commitments as barriers to the undertaking of research (34%), while 11% were not interested in this activity (Pager et al., 2012). Interestingly, while 50% of these practitioners held undergraduate qualifications, they were not required to undertake research within their role in the health institution. Speech language pathologists reported an association between research interest and research engagement as well as variation in their level of research interest across different research tasks (Finch et al., 2013). Nurses indicated that researcher and nursing perspectives became more integrated as their interest in research grew through progression towards higher academic levels (Dupin et al., 2015). Similarly, participants described changes in the understanding of academic thinking and “working like a scientist” (Behar-Horenstein and Johnson, 2010, p. 64), as a basis for growing interest in doing research. In addition, those practitioners with no current involvement in research were the least interested in learning about research (Stephens et al., 2009). Nurses connected the level of research engagement with the lack of knowledge: “Definitely knowledge deficit... There are a lot of people that have done their nursing in hospitals, who don’t have [the] academic background and that is a huge hurdle” (Evans et al., 2014, p. 228). Some social workers, professional leaders and managers considered research to be a “stretch” and preferred updating knowledge and skills at a more basic (non-research) level (Bedoee, 2011). Dupin et al. (2015) provided evidence that nurses’ apprenticeships in research activities depended on the perceived usefulness in optimising patient care and direct connection to practice. These nurses focused on having separate research and nursing roles: “If I perform an interview and analyse a questionnaire, then I am a rresearcher, and I feel very much as a researcher. For being a nurse, I see it more like being next to the patient” (Dupin et al., 2015, p. 76).

A lack of confidence amongst practitioners in their ability to conduct research emerged in 17 of the studies. The majority of public health professionals felt that their confidence to conduct research was low (Janssen et al., 2015). Furthermore, they expressed attitudes towards research directly related to their confidence and motivation for involvement in research activities. Participants who were not confident to participate in research also struggled to access electronic databases and to understand EBP. Similarly, 45% of nurses in Gerrish et al.’s (2011) research identified themselves as complete beginners or novices in relation to EBP skills. Amongst this group, 50% considered themselves competent or expert in relation to using EBP in their work. Only one-quarter (25%) of these nurses indicated that they felt competent to undertake research.

Overcoming low confidence and apprehension about the individual practitioner’s ability to undertake research tasks successfully was a crucial element to subsequent engagement in research (Finch et al., 2015). Nurses in hospital-based research roles reported the need to have confidence in their pre-existing, in-depth knowledge in the associated clinical specialty before involvement in related research studies (Rickard et al., 2011). Further, nurses considered improvement in their critical appraisal skills to be crucial to overcome low levels of confidence and research engagement (Evans et al., 2014).

The most confident activity for 67% of therapeutic radiographers participating in Probst et al.’s (2015) research was the use of quantitative methods. Regarding research type, physiotherapists preferred randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews; they perceived case studies or case series as less scientific, while qualitative research methods were not mentioned (Janssen et al., 2015). Nurses also stressed the value of syntheses of research in the form of systematic reviews and indicated greatest confidence, experience and interest in qualitative research methods (Gerrish et al., 2011).

Lack of confidence connected with lack of research competencies, skills and knowledge to undertake research occurred in six studies. Allied health professionals (54%) reported the lack of research skills and knowledge as one of their main barriers to research (Pager et al., 2012). Practitioners in studies by Evans et al. (2014), Hauck et al. (2015) and Murray and Newton (2009) emphasised that research knowledge and skills increased only after further education provision on top of their undergraduate studies. Furthermore, traditional Masters programmes may provide insufficient research training while higher doctoral research training, Masters by Research and/or Master of Philosophy qualifications were reported as most appropriate for developing applicable research skills (Probst et al., 2015). For example, public health professionals valued confidence in performing oral presentations and increased the ability to contact university staff to collaborate in new research projects following “master class” research-related programmes (Jansen and Hoeijmakers, 2013). These health professionals (31%) felt confident to analyse data from new research without supervision, while 25% reported low confidence in following medical ethics approval procedures. Conversely, students majoring in different sciences reported gains in various research skills while undertaking one specific undergraduate course (Behar-Horenstein and Johnson, 2010). An alternative way of learning knowledge and skills was expressed by nurses in research roles within one hospital who indicated “learning on the job” (Rickard et al., 2011, p. 172) was central to their development. These nurses explained that some practitioners preferred to learn informally rather than through formal postgraduate studies (Rickard et al., 2011).

Participants’ abilities to write for professional publication indicated developing research competencies in seven studies (as summarised in Table 3). These studies commonly reported a link between a participant’s desire to develop skills and increase knowledge with successful publishing or presenting results of research activities. For example, a desire to prove a theory or hunch, undertake and publish research for career advancement, recognition and job satisfaction was reported (Pager et al., 2012). However, respondents frequently considered themselves inexperienced or lacking confidence when applying for research funding, writing and presenting oral reports or writing for publication (Finch et al., 2013; Stephens et al., 2009). One-quarter of allied health professionals reported feeling intimidated by research language (Pager et al., 2012). Public health professionals (25%) also reported low confidence in writing scientific articles in English (Jansen and Hoeijmakers, 2013). Similarly, physiotherapists indicated a lack of confidence in their writing ability with comments such as “writing is not for me” and “[writing is] a very highfaluting [high status] kind of activity” (Murray and Newton, 2009, p. 31). Lack of writing confidence also emerged as a moderate or major barrier to research-related publications in 50% of respondents in King et al.’s (2015) study. Low confidence was one of the two most powerful barriers to writing, together with “difficulty in getting started” (King et al., 2015, p. 180). Overall, participants indicated the need for developing research competencies, increased academic vocabulary, greater guidance and support, as well as further practical experience in the field before embarking on research as ways of developing greater confidence (Bedoee, 2011; King et al., 2015).

The term “academic” describes those employed in universities undertaking either teaching or research or a combination of these activities. The importance of mentoring, ongoing support, feedback, qualifications and collaboration emerged as expectations of academics across all the reviewed studies. Feedback, support and mentoring figured as the most important of the academics’ contributions to the shared academic/practitioner publishing effort. Moreover, individual academic qualifications, as well as the level of established collaborations with practitioners, influenced the outcome of these individual-based research activities.

Personal characteristics including interest, motivation and commitment that academics manifested indirectly related to their demographic characteristics, an interesting aspect that has remained relatively unexplored. However, participants’ academic degrees and official titles showed significant connections to their broad approaches to knowledge acquisition (Koivula et al., 2011). More specifically, academics considered PhD acquisition to be a necessity to their research education and acculturation (Dupin et al., 2015).

Koivula et al. (2011) found that 40% of academic participants undertook no research activities. In addition, these academics provided significantly less nursing science-based teaching and had a narrower knowledge acquisition and a more traditional approach to teaching than those working in research and development. Furthermore, most of these nursing academics held Master’s degree qualifications, although 12% had “a licentiate” or PhD (Koivula et al., 2011). Unsurprisingly, only 12% of these participants had published in international, peer-reviewed scientific journals, while 30% had conference-based publications. At the same time, radiologic technologists holding doctoral degrees reported lack of specific training and mentorship in how to write for publication during their doctoral programmes as well as when they entered the workplace (Metcalf et al., 2010). Controversially, 30 research radiographers participating in Probst et al.’s (2015) study reported 27 peer-reviewed articles published and 95 conference presentations delivered in the period of 12 months. All held higher degree (postgraduate) qualifications, three had PhDs, while two were professors. Interestingly, these participants reported that very little time (<10%) was devoted to writing research proposals or publications, while partnerships and collaborations were not developed (Probst et al., 2015). Yet, medical staff, non-medical practitioners and administrative staff indicated that developing and sustaining research collaborations were crucial; they highlighted that issues connected to the lack of communication and collaboration between researchers, practitioners and users, while responsibility for this cooperation was placed on academics (Gonzalez et al., 2012).

Academic and/or health professional researchers who chose to participate in clinical activities through the provision of support and mentoring emerged as the most valued (Gonzalez et al., 2012; Ulrich et al., 2015). In particular, over 90% of nurse scientists indicated that three issues underpinned successful research collaborations: clearly defined roles, responsibilities and boundaries; clear and frequent communication and complementary interests or expertise (Ulrich et al., 2015). Surprisingly, in this digital age, these participants also reported close geographic proximity of collaborators as important to their successful collaborations. Lack of communication (92.1%) and timeliness (90.9%) emerged as challenging to successful research partnerships. Most of these respondents reported learning about collaborative relationships from personal experiences and from research mentors (Ulrich et al., 2015). Mentoring, feedback and ongoing support arose as strong sub-themes across reviewed studies. Interestingly, only Behar-Horenstein and Johnson (2010) criticised academics for failing to engage with practitioners when providing research-related presentations. Mentoring was regarded as a central and essential component empowering practitioners’ research experiences and emerged as the most significant facilitating factor in practitioners’ involvement in research. For example, allied health professionals (41%) acknowledged mentors as personal motivators and enablers (Pager et al., 2012). Even with increased publication outputs after a “writing for publication” course, physiotherapists identified the need for further mentoring and ongoing support (Murray and Newton, 2009). King et al. (2015) investigated the role of mentors further: their respondents (>80%) appreciated encouraging supervisor and peer feedback. Positive comments on drafts and suggestions of worthiness for publication assisted participants to progress towards subsequent journal submission and successful publication, even if they had published previously (King et al., 2015).

The term “institution” refers to an employing organisation involved in research, education and/or health care. Institutional characteristics of educational and health institutions, such as organisation, orientation and operationalisation of activities, were recognised as crucial in facilitating or obstructing research activities in 18 studies. Time, pressures of practical work and leadership were major issues for involvement in research across participants, groups and studies, conducted in both educational and health institutions. These factors reflected those traditionally cited in the literature: conflicting job demands and a heavy workload, lack of time for research, other work roles taking priority, low staffing levels and high staff turnover (Bedoee, 2011; Behar-Horenstein and Johnson, 2010; Pager et al, 2012).

Lack of resources especially funding and/or discrepancies in the ways in which different practitioners’ disciplines received resource provision emerged. The lack of coordination of approaches, due to little support given by managers, was noticeable (Pager et al, 2012). Limited infrastructure such as access to computers, research-specific software and dedicated workspaces and administrative support were also problematic (Metcalf et al., 2010). In addition, becoming a researcher was regarded as difficult due to the lack of clear career pathways (Rickard et al., 2011) and balancing research activities with family life (Metcalf et al., 2010). Furthermore, linking research to business planning cycles, job recruitment and advertising materials and/or nominating employees as leaders of research teams within departments varied widely. The variations indicated great differences in the priority of research within educational and health institutions’ organisational structures and processes (Probst et al., 2015; Ulrich et al., 2015). The opportunity to research together as a team, led by a supportive team manager, was also an important enabler (Pager et al., 2012; Rickard et al., 2011). Similarly, Dupin et al.’s (2015) findings revealed a causal link between practitioners’ research learning processes and activities, facilitated by established integration which drew them into academic structures, peer groups and exchanges with other students.

Interestingly, characteristics of educational institutions including organisation, orientation and operationalisation of activities accompanied by their endeavour to cooperate with health institutions to undertake research appeared unexplored. The organisation of specific research programmes or courses on offer emerged as important in five of the studies. Specifically, access to university facilities and well-coordinated, relevant and structured courses along with effective supervision contributed strongly to the development of practitioners’ research knowledge (Bedoee, 2011; Behar-Horenstein and Johnson, 2010; Dupin et al., 2015; Metcalf et al., 2010; Ulrich et al., 2015). In addition, these studies identified the achievement of creative linkages between universities and health institutions as extremely important. These authors proposed introducing apprenticeship arrangements including research traineeships, training fellowships, postdoctoral career opportunities and affiliations with universities and university-based researchers for health professionals. The studies noted that health institutions needed to invest in workforce development and research infrastructure to assist in the research education of their staff (Bedoee, 2011; Behar-Horenstein and Johnson, 2010; Dupin et al., 2015; Metcalf et al., 2010; Ulrich et al., 2015).

Relationships between the academic and health institutions were challenging for nurse “scientists” (Ulrich et al., 2015), particularly for multidisciplinary and international collaborations across different academic and practice settings. Laboratory and clinically based research especially challenged multidisciplinary collaboration. The expanded use of qualitative methodologies and mixed methods led to greater requirements of qualitative expertise in many research teams. Participants reported that negotiating their role in a well-established quantitative research group brought epistemological challenges in relation to data ownership (Ulrich et al., 2015). Moreover, nurse respondents (54.5%) in Ulrich et al.’s (2015) sample agreed that junior faculty academics were at risk of being exploited in these collaborative relationships. Studies involving participants from other professions have not illuminated these issues.

The term “professional demand” refers to expectations and requirements of professionals in the course of their employment. Professional demands as well as those required by governments and/or governmental bodies through hierarchical based policies received substantially less attention. These demands placed on both academics and practitioners emerged in 11 studies, as summarised in Table 3. The specific professional discipline and its existing culture were noted to have an effect (facilitating or obstructing) on practitioners’ and academics’ approaches and knowledge of research.

Several physiotherapists emphasised that their discipline’s culture and expectation had shaped their motivation towards involvement in research, increasing their professional status “research buys us that academic title, and also it should cement our position within the healthcare system” (Janssen et al., 2015, p. 4). In contrast, another participant’s view was “we’re now legally bound to work within evidence-based practice and there’s no such real thing. In the majority of our physiotherapy, realistically... you can’t measure it, you can’t research it” (Janssen et al., 2015, p. 4). Social workers viewed research as a way of justifying their actions and roles in institutions. Research findings “help us to better meet the managerial demands [for] effectiveness, we can more effectively answer what it is that social work brings to this organization, what it brings to its clients... in a way that impresses other people” (Bedoee, 2011, p. 563). A further social worker stated that their development in research “would be seen in terms of paralleling other professions, particularly doctors a kudos thing really” (Bedoee, 2011, p. 569). Similarly, in Dupin et al.’s (2015) study, hospital nurse researchers’ perspectives on research merged with their professional identity. One participant perceived being a researcher as “something you breathe, to be a researcher, is to breathe new knowledge” (Dupin et al., 2015, p. 76). Nurses identified a form of loneliness as a barrier and pointed to the need to defend research as an essential component of the nursing profession. Allied health professionals also reported feelings of isolation because of little support from managers as well as from colleagues and partners (Pager et al., 2012). This notable variation in cultural expectation around research activity echoed across disciplines. Speech therapists expressed the highest level of research interest, followed by social workers, occupational therapists and physical therapists with dieticians indicating no interest or experience in research at all (Stephens et al., 2009).

Changing the prevailing culture towards research within their disciplines was, according to participants, essential to encourage greater participation in and engagement with research by others. For example, participants in Bedoee’s (2011) study described basing their work on research evidence as a vital element of professional culture. Similarly, Dupin et al. (2015) depicted learning about research as a continual process of creating new knowledge and professional development. Professional communities that supported members’ research qualification development appeared to be a major facilitator in the development of nurse researchers. Participants described sharing research practices and projects as a way of contributing to knowledge development and developing collaborations across academia, clinical practice and management (Dupin et al., 2015).

However, several studies emphasised the ethical need to provide better evidence of the effectiveness and impact of practitioners’ work. These authors recommended longitudinal research to evaluate the impact of research evidence application to health professionals’ practice along with the need to increase interest and passion for research amongst practitioners in general. Yet, the demands placed on practitioners in the current professional environment have rarely received attention in recent studies. Strategic initiatives intended to increase the level of research engagement amongst health practitioners emerged: “health professionals’ competency assurances have taken on a whole new meaning around people’s continuing education... ensuring that they are keeping up to date with latest trends….” (Bedoee, 2011, p. 564). Participants in Pager et al.’s (2012) study reported a new health initiative driving the research agenda as a significant motivator for their involvement in research. Furthermore, an appreciation of value driven person-centred or participatory approaches to social and health research emerged in studies by Bedoee, (2011), Dupin et al. (2015) and Gerrish et al. (2011) studies, where participants focused strongly on client satisfaction and working collaboratively with service users.

This literature review was limited by the number of available and relevant empirical studies. While search terms were chosen carefully, some studies with relevant content may have been missed due to variation in key terms used. The search was also limited to studies published in English potentially omitting pertinent studies published in other languages. Reviewers minimised reporting bias through the use of cross-checking and reflection on decision-making by the authorship team.

The majority of these studies provided limited information on research designs, research questions, data gathering processes and analyses. While the studies in this review suggest that nursing holds a prominent position in undertaking research activities compared with other health professionals (excluding medicine) and social workers (Bedoee, 2011; Janssen et al., 2015), it may be problematic to draw conclusions about individual professions. Generalisation of findings requires a cautious approach when applied to individual professions as studies may describe local practice only, particularly in relation to professions with low representation in respondent numbers. For example, the reported dietician disinterest in research from a single study provides little grounds for generalisation. However, the value of this systematic review lies in the consideration of overall themes and related strategies that can apply across professions. While interdisciplinary and contextual differences are acknowledged, there appears to be a high level of similarity in the findings and therefore potential transferability across disciplines.