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Background: Throughout the world, there is increasing awareness and acknowledgement of the value of research evidence in the development of effective health policy and in quality health care practice and administration. Among the major challenges associated with the lack of uptake of research evidence into policy and practice in Nigeria is the capacity constraints of policymakers to use research evidence in policy making. Objective: To assess the capacity of maternal and child health policy makers to acquire, access, adapt and apply available research evidence. Methods: This cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted at a national maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) stakeholders’ engagement event. An evidence to policy self-assessment questionnaire was used to assess the capacity of forty MNCH policy makers to acquire, assess, adapt and apply research evidence for policy making. Results: Low mean ratings were observed ranging from 2.68-3.53 on a scale of 5 for knowledge about initiating/conducting research and capacity to assess authenticity, validity, reliability, relevance and applicability of research evidence and for organizational capacity for promoting and using of research for policy making. Conclusion: There is need to institute policy makers’ capacity development programmes to improve evidence-informed poli-cymaking.
The study design was a cross-sectional survey undertaken during a one-day national MNCH stakeholders’ engagement event convened under the auspices of the West African Health Organization (WAHO) and the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) Nigeria, in October 2015 in Abuja, Nigeria. A cross-sectional quantitative survey was used because of the need to capture information based on data gathered for a specific point in time (ie., at the stakeholders’ engagement event). The study design was also used to generate findings and outcomes that can be analysed in order to develop more in-depth research on policy makers’ capacity constraints regarding evidence-informed policy making. Among the objectives of the meeting was to assess the capacity of national policy makers and their organizations to acquire, assess, adapt and apply research evidence for MNCH policy making in Nigeria. Participants were officers of senior cadre drawn from the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) Abuja and its associated ministries, departments and agencies; others included directors from selected State Ministry of Health (SMOH); executive officers from development partner organizations (DPOs), civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As part of the inclusion criterial, only individuals from the FMOH, SMOH, DPOs and CSOs/NGOs who were involved in MNCH programmes and policy making/implementation were invited. A questionnaire was administered to participants after the completion of an informed consent form. The questionnaire and the informed consent form were approved by the University Research Ethics Committee of Ebonyi State University Nigeria (the institution of the principal author). The questionnaire was designed to assess participants’ knowledge, capacity and organizational process of generation, synthesis and utilization of research evidence in policy making regarding MNCH. The questionnaire used for this assessment were modification of the self-assessment tool produced by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) available at the following websites: We chose the CHSRF self-assessment tool as the basis from which we developed our data collection tool because a number of reports have demonstrated that it can help projects evaluate their capacity to use research evidence in the design and delivery of services19–22. The questionnaire contained core questions (hints), which assessed the following:
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