Proliferation of the WReN spider, an instrument to measure health professionals’ experience of research: a bibliographic study

Abstract

Background In 1997 the “Wessex Research Network (WReN) Spider” was developed and validated to assess the research experience of general practice based researchers. This bibliometric study traces the use and development of this instrument over 15 years. Methods We performed a bibliographic search to identify all the citations of the original article since 2002. Results Thirty one relevant papers were found. Publications were classified according to whether they used ( N = 18) or cited ( N = 13) the WReN Spider. The majority of these papers came from Australia (N = 18) and 10 papers focussed on the research training of Allied Health Professionals. The WReN Spider was used in 12 studies to assess baseline experience before a training intervention or to compare before and after training scores. The WReN Spider was often ( N = 9) modified to additionally assess interest, confidence or interest in up-skilling in each of its 10 limbs. It was also often ( N = 14) used in tandem with open ended questions to gain a more detailed understanding of people’s research skills, or with additional questions focussing on the research context, culture and team. None of the papers confirmed the validation of the WReN Spider, although it was applied in contexts that differed from the one in which it was developed. Conclusions The WReN Spider continues to be used to measure the research experience of health care practitioners, but it is frequently enhanced with other questions to look at the wider issues of research success, including collaborators, resource and environment.

A qualitative systematic review and thematic synthesis exploring the impacts of clinical academic activity by healthcare professionals outside medicine

“…The impacts reported in the included articles were largely qualitative reports. Some studies incorporated quantitative data capture tools, such as the Research Capacity and Culture tool [ 48 , 49 ] and the WReN (Wessex Research Network) spider [ 50 , 51 ], or counts of publications, presentations and awards. The quantitative measures appeared to explore a discrete component of research impact, whereas the qualitative data provided a broad picture of the impacts in different contexts and uncovered both intended and unintended consequences of the research activity.…”

Impacts of clinical academic activity: qualitative interviews with healthcare managers and research-active nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and pharmacists

“…However, although interviewees suggested that research engagement should be captured through quantitative data on the number of registered projects (audit, quality, improvement and research) and individuals involved in these projects, no one mentioned using existing measures of research awareness/engagement such as research spider or research culture and capacity survey, which have been reported in other NMAHPP clinical academic contexts. [48][49][50] It is possible that measures of actual research activity held greater importance for interviewees compared with more abstract measures of research knowledge and research intention; however, it is also possible that interviewees were not aware of the existing survey measures.…”

Moving from Interest to Engagement—Understanding the Research Capacity Building Needs of Rehabilitation Doctors

“…50 The original version of the tool assessed only one construct: experience. Other constructs have since been added 51 including interest 52 and confidence. 53 Ried et al 54 extended the instrument to understand desired research skills.…”