Changes in research competency of public health personnel following an empowerment-based capacity development program...

Research competency among frontline public health personnel is a prerequisite for evidence-informed local health systems, yet most capacity-building programs in low- and middle-income settings are short didactic courses that are rarely evaluated with both outcome and process data. This study examined changes in self-reported research competency among public health personnel who completed an Empowerment-Based Capacity Development Program designed to convert routine public health work into publishable research, and explored how participants themselves accounted for those changes. The quantitative outcome sits at Kirkpatrick level 2 (self-reported learning) and the qualitative strand adds level 1 (reaction); neither strand reaches level 3 (behavior) or level 4 (results). The evaluation is presented as preliminary implementation and feasibility evidence rather than as an effectiveness trial.

A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was used. The quantitative strand was a single-group pretest-posttest study without a comparison group, conducted with 30 purposively sampled public health personnel from three self-selected service settings in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, and Khon Kaen provinces, Thailand. Participants completed a five-session, six-component empowerment program (policy, preparation, practice, publishing, positive reinforcement, and passion) delivered over one academic year. Self-reported research competency was measured with an adapted 47-item research competency questionnaire; the factor structure of the original instrument was reported previously, whereas evidence generated for the present study was limited to content validity of the adapted items (item-objective congruence 0.67-1.00) and internal consistency in a separate pilot of 30 personnel (Cronbach's α = 0.84). Data were analyzed with paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with effect sizes. The qualitative strand comprised three focus group discussions (n = 30) held after the program and analyzed by content analysis. Strands were merged in a joint display with pre-specified mapping criteria and interpreted through an explicit meta-inference.

Self-reported overall research competency was higher at posttest than at pretest, rising from 3.13 (SD = 0.27) to 4.27 (SD = 0.35) out of 5 (within-participant mean difference 1.14, 95% CI 0.98-1.30; p < 0.001; Cohen's dz = 2.58), with increases in all eight domains (dz = 1.04-1.81; Wilcoxon r = 0.59-0.60). Content analysis yielded nine categories grouped into four themes: crossing the expert barrier; from first publication to research as ordinary work; learning with others and putting findings to use; and the limits of intention workload, dissemination and dependence on scaffolding. Integrating the strands indicated that change concentrated in the motivational and evaluative domains while technical and dissemination competencies lagged, and that participants attributed that lag not to residual knowledge deficits but to service work taking priority and to reliance on mentor scaffolding for the final steps of publication. At the structural level, construct-level consistency was found for five of the eight domains, illustration or expansion for three, and two participant-reported outcomes interprofessional exchange and the reframing of research as routine work were absent from the instrument; no discordance was identified.

Participation in an empowerment-based, practice-embedded program was associated with large within-participant increases in self-reported research competency, and participants' retrospective accounts described the change as a shift from research as an expert activity to research as an extension of routine work that nonetheless stops short of independent dissemination. Because the design was single-group and both strands relied on self-report collected by the team that delivered the program, these findings constitute feasibility and acceptability evidence rather than evidence of causal effectiveness. Controlled designs with longer follow-up and objective research-productivity indicators are required before wider scale-up, and competency instruments in this field require items covering collaboration and the integration of research into routine work.