Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40976704›Full record

ArticleEnvironmental health and preventive medicine2025

Japanese medical researchers' perceptions of quantitative research evaluation metrics and their psychological well-being: a cross-sectional study.

Akira Minoura, Keisuke Kuwahara, Yuhei Shimada, Hiroko Fukushima, Makoto Kondo, Takehiro Sugiyama

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Article in Environmental health and preventive medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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5 · Who and what money

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6 authors.

Akira MinouraDepartment of Hygiene, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Showa Medical University School of Medicine.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9805-508X
Keisuke KuwaharaDepartment of Epidemiology and Prevention, Center for Clinical Sciences, Japan Institute for Health Security.
Yuhei ShimadaGraduate Schools for Law and Politics, The University of Tokyo.
Hiroko FukushimaDepartment of Pediatrics, University of Tsukuba Hospital.
Makoto KondoDepartment of Anatomy and Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University.
Takehiro SugiyamaDiabetes and Metabolism Information Center, National Institute of Global Health and Medicine, Japan Institute for Health Security.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundSupporting the mental health of researchers is essential to maintaining human resources and advancing science. This study investigated the association between Japanese medical researchers' perceptions of research evaluation processes and their psychological well-being.

methodsWe performed a web-based self-administered questionnaire survey. The questionnaires were distributed to each academic society through the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences from December 2022 to January 2023. These questionnaires targeted medical researchers. Exposure was the medical researchers' perceptions of quantitative indicators for evaluating medical research and researchers. The outcome was psychological well-being, measured using the Japanese version of the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5). Multivariable-adjusted logistic regressions were conducted to investigate the association between individual attitudes toward research evaluation and psychological well-being. Stratified analyses by research fields, i.e., clinical, basic, and social medicine, were also performed.

resultsA total of 3,139 valid responses were collected. After excluding 176 responses from research fields of other than clinical, basic, or social medicine, 2,963 researchers (2,185 male, 737 female, and 41 other) were analyzed. Prevalence of poor well-being (WHO-5 score <13) was 28.3% in the researchers. The highest number of medical researchers was in clinical medicine (n = 500) followed by basic medicine (n = 217) and social medicine (n = 121). Medical researchers who considered research funding slightly important/not important for researcher evaluation had poorer psychological well-being than those who considered it especially important (slightly important: adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.33, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03-1.71; not important: aOR 1.53, 95%CI 1.10-2.12). This tendency was stronger among basic medical researchers than clinical or social medical researchers. The research field significantly modified the relationship between research funding received and interaction with poor psychological well-being both additively (P = 0.030) and multiplicatively (P = 0.024).

conclusionsThe discrepancy between medical researchers' attitudes toward research evaluation and the current state of research evaluation in their research community may worsen their psychological well-being. The influence of this discrepancy differs among clinical, basic, and social medicine. Appropriate evaluation of medical research and researchers in each field can facilitate improving their psychological well-being via the resolution of this discrepancy.

Indexed as

Biomedical ResearchMental HealthResearch PersonnelAdultCross-Sectional StudiesEast Asian PeopleFemaleHumansJapanMaleMiddle AgedPsychological Well-BeingSurveys and QuestionnairesBasic medicineClinical medicineJapaneseMedical researcherPsychological well-beingResearch evaluationSocial medicine

Identifiers

PMID40976704
PMCPMC12483756

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.