Mentoring in research: development of competencies for health professionals

BACKGROUND: Mentoring programmes in health research are beneficial for both mentors and mentees and are essential for the development of the next generation of research leaders. This study describes the self-assessment of research skills in health professionals participating in a research mentoring programme and determines the correlation between the participants’ self-assessment of research skills and professional characteristics. METHOD: This was a quasi-experimental, time-series study conducted in a Brazilian tertiary hospital. Thirty-five health professionals holding a master’s or PhD degree were included. The participants answered a survey in which they self-assessed their research skills distributed into eight domains, with one group responding before training and another group responding after training. The level of significance was set at 5% (p < 0.05). RESULTS: Those who received training scored better in research skills related to two domains: critical analysis of the literature and identification of appropriate research methods (p = 0.0245). CONCLUSION: Trained professionals performed better in the domains of critical thinking and knowledge and management of steps in the research process.