Identifying strategies to improve research publication output in health and rehabilitation sciences: a review of the literature

The health research community in South Africa annually produces a fair number of research papers in national and international health and related journals. Unfortunately, the proportion of papers produced by authors in health and rehabilitation sciences is insignificant compared with other disciplines. To identify strategies to increase the number of publications in South Africa, this article reports on a review of published papers into the effectiveness of interventions designed to promote research publications among academics and clinicians in health and rehabilitation sciences programmes. Seven of the papers reported on interventions for academics, and six reported on the interventions for academics in the nursing profession. The most common interventions were ‘writing support groups’, ‘writing retreats’, and ‘writing courses’ that lasted from 3 days to 5 years. The interventions were designed to meet the needs of the participants for structured time, motivation, improved writing skills and peer support. All the interventions produced significant research output relating to submission or publication of academic papers. The implementation of these interventions by South African tertiary institutions where health and rehabilitation sciences are offered may improve the number of papers published by the health research community.