Factors for Successful Research

¶ … designing a study. Ensuring that the study meets the viability and reliability standards that can contribute to current literature is usually one of the main objectives of the researcher and to accomplish that objective some of the considerations that should be undertaken include questions such as; how is the study to be funded, how to identify the stakeholders, what standards are going to be met during recruitment of participants, and how to maintain confidentiality of the participants in the study.

Recruiting participants

Busey and Waring (2012) found that there are a variety of benefits derived from the positive effects experienced by study participants that translate into characteristics exhibited by good citizens. Konter (2009) found that participants exhibited an overall higher level of social behavior. When recruiting participants to a medical study these characteristics should be looked for and emphasized. It is not just the individual patients that are being recruited for participation, it is also the general practitioners, surgeons, nurses or medical personnel that must also be recruited. Parkinson, Jorm, Douglas, Gee, Sargent, Lujic, McRae (2015) discovered that recruitment of medical personnel into research has been "disappointing with response rates declining over recent years" (p. 254). Their study did offer some hope by determining that the GP's were more likely to respond in a positive manner if the researcher used a known and trusted network of professionals to endorse the study, and that was especially true if such action was combined with "an explicit compensation payment" (p. 254).

An explicit compensation payment, of course, leads to the next question in preparing for the study; how will it be funded.

Funding studies

Conducting a medical research study is not often an easy or inexpensive endeavor. Often times lack of funding can be one of the strongest hindrances against completing a study, especially in the medical community. Oftentimes, this hindrance can be addressed by receiving grants supplied by different organizations. Barnett, Herbert, Campbell, Daly, Roberts, Mudge & Graves (2015) state that organizations in the United States that provide funding opportunities include the National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (p. 1) and that tailoring applications for research grants to what the organization(s) were asking for was a key to winning the grants. The same study determined that focusing on a good research idea rather than the track record of the researcher was also a component found in the awarding of grants. To apply for a grant is one method for gaining funding, but the research team must keep in mind that a budget for funding is a crucial component that should be developed before funding is even considered. Of course, one of the primary considerations when forming a budget, is the personnel that will be necessary to accomplish the study's goals and objectives.

Study Personnel

Recruiting strong, ethical personnel to the study is likely to be one of the biggest difficulties for the researcher. Miller and Bird (2014) that it was becoming more difficult to recruit staff because of the many of the individuals interviewed failed to "exhibit the core values expected of their profession, such as compassion and leadership" (p. 22).