Systematic review of the instruments for measuring research skills in higher medical education

Background: Research skills can improve the professional skills of the staff of health sciences by exposing them to the most up-To-date practices. Its evaluation through measuring instruments is part of the training process in university and professional teaching-learning environments. Objective: To analyze the measuring instruments that have been developed in the health sciences to assess research competencies in a quantitative way. Material and Methods: A comprehensive search on the topic was carried out in scientific journals of databases such as MEDLINE (via PubMed), Scopus, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Redalyc and SciELO over the last ten years (from January 2009 to December 2019). Results: The search identified 14 articles that met the inclusion criteria; seven of them were applied to university students while the others were applied to graduates (graduates and teachers). Most studies were performed in the field of Nursing. Three articles had the design of a validation of instruments; one study had a quasiexperimental design while the others presented a descriptive cross-sectional design. All the instruments used scales and presented categories of Likert-Type scales. Conclusions: We conclude that the development of research skills is important for the university and professional sector. The review identified few studies that assessed research skills through measuring instruments. Three studies presented the metric properties of the instruments so they could be replicated and / or translated for their application in different healthcare contexts.