“Kuchoka”: Investigation of research fatigue in Mosoriot, Kenya

Abstract

Health research is key to the promotion of population and community health, how ever, conducting many research studies in a community can cause research fatigue. Purpose We determined the prevalence of research fatigue and associated factors in Mosoriot, Kenya. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study in the Mosoriot community from Wednesday 28, May 2014, to Thursday 30, April 2015, involving (n = 327) community members who were randomly sampled to respond to self-administered and/or guided question naires. We analyzed descriptive statistics to summarise the data and used the Pear son Chi-Square test to assess the bivariate associations between the variables and conducted multivariate analyses using logistic regression models to test the hypothe ses. The odds ratios and the corresponding 95% confidence limits were reported. Results Research fatigue prevalence was 56.3% and the factors associated included being >35 years (OR: 2.28, 95% CL: 1.27, 4.15), being male (OR: 2.80, 95% CL:1.59, 5.00), self-employment (OR: 2.05, 95% CL: 1.06, 4.01), participating in hospital- based studies (OR: 3.59, 95% CL:1.88, 7.09), involvement in multiple researches (OR: 3.86, 95% CL:1.87, 8.27), desire to drop out of a study (OR: 11.49, 95% CL: 3.69, 43.83) and being asked personal questions (OR: 6.23, 95% CL: 3.28, 12.23)There is a high prevalence of research fatigue (56.3%) among community members in Mosoriot who have participated in repeated research, which is associated with age, gender, income source, research setting, frequency of research engagement, desire to drop out of studies, and discomfort with questions. Addressing research fatigue would enhance ethical research conduct and promote sustained community participa tion in research. Background The value of health research in promoting the health of communities cannot be understated because it addresses community and patients’ needs and fosters a col laborative and ethical foundation for scientific discovery [1]. Engaging communities in research ensures recognition of community priorities, values, and interests that would have intrinsic ethical importance [2]. However, conducting too many research studies in one community causes research fatigue [3], raises ethical issues [4], and influ ences data quality [5] and future participation [6]. Research fatigue is a state where individuals or groups tire of participating in research due to high-volume research projects [7], long or sensitive interviews [3,8,9], and lack of tangible benefit, often resulting to distrust [10]. Although the global prevalence of research fatigue is still unknown [4], evidence shows substantial prevalence of 42% among injecting drug users (IDUs) in HIV stud ies in Karachi [11], and 52% in pooled cancer studies [5]. As a result, research fatigue has several undesired outcomes including research participants may become hostile [12–14], distrustful, or feel coerced [12,15–18], hence undermining the Belmont ethi cal principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects in research includ ing respect for persons, beneficence, and justice [4,6,12,19–24]. It also threatens scientific validity of research through selection and non-response biases and social desirability effects [4,17,18], which may compromise data quality and generalizability of findings [19,20,22]. In recognition of the presence of research fatigue in health research and insuf ficient data in communities that have been involved in multiple studies, there is a need to document its prevalence and ethical implications in contexts such as Kenya. This study reports findings from a community frequently engaged in multiple health research projects in Kenya.