Prof Elmien Truter, associate professor of social work and research coordinator at Community Psychosocial Research (COMPRES), recently arranged a one-day workshop for researchers at the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Vanderbijlpark Campus.

COMPRES is a research focus area that provides research support and services to researchers and students within the field of social sciences.

The workshop was arranged after a survey among staff revealed that staff within the Faculty of Health Sciences needed more training in systematic reviews, and took place on 17 March 2023. It was presented by Prof Welma Lubbe, director of the research focus area Quality in Nursing and Midwifery (NuMIQ), as well as Karlien van Schalkwyk, Prof Kruger and Dr Scholtz - all researchers from NuMIQ and the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research.

The workshop focused on what a systematic review is, the types of reviews and other essential components to conducting systematic reviews, and how it fits into the science and the hierarchy of scientific evidence.

"The training session was open to all researchers and was done in collaboration with Prof Lubbe, and with the support of Prof Retha Bloem, director of COMPRES, and Dr Christiaan Bekker, deputy director of the School of Psychosocial Health, who enabled the training," Prof Truter says.

“COMPRES is committed to high quality research that will make positive and impactful changes in the communities we live in, hence we are making the effort to arrange learning opportunities for our staff,” she adds.

 Researchers attend the one-day workshop on systematic review.