Scholarly Activities Participation among Surgical Resident Doctors in Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Scholarly activity in various forms are academic deeds such as researches and research outputs in articles, oral presentations, publications and theses which are disseminated and peer- reviewed.

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to assess the level of participation of residents in scholarly activities including their attendance of national and international conferences during residency training.

METHODS: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of 81 resident doctors in General and Orthopaedic surgery, who attended the revision courses organized by their Faculties. Self-administered structured questionnaires were used to collect data. Data obtained was analyzed using SPSS version 21.0.

RESULTS: The mean age of the respondents was 34.1 ± 4.5 years, and age ranged from 26 years to 48 years. The male: female ratio was 12.5:1. The average number of years of respondents in residency programme was 3.9 ± 1.8 years. 80.3% of the residents had participated in research since commencement of their residency. Only 18.5% of the resident doctors had any publications in a peer-reviewed journal. While 51.9% of residents had attended local and national conferences since the beginning of their training, only 17.3% had had oral and/or poster presentations at local conferences. No resident involved in this study had oral or poster presentation done at any of the international conferences attended, despite an attendance rate of 12.3%.

CONCLUSION: Resident doctors should be encouraged to participate in researches and to publish their works. They should also be encouraged to present their works at conferences.