You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Editorial
Expanding sports and exercise medicine research in Cameroon: current challenges and defining what is needed
  1. Douryang Maurice
  1. Department of Physiotherapy and Physical Medicine, University of Dschang, Dschang, Cameroon
  1. Correspondence to Dr Douryang Maurice, Department of Physiotherapy and Physical Medicine, University of Dschang, P.O Box 96 Dschang, Cameroon; maurice.douryang{at}univ-dschang.org

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-104481

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Sports and exercise medicine (SEM) clinicians embrace evidence-based practice as a means to improve quality of care, ultimately improving the overall health of the community. However, implementation and dissemination of research evidence to SEM practice encounters many barriers in different settings. SEM is well established in many developed countries,1–3 but in some African countries such as Cameroon, SEM research is ‘embryonic’ and its expansion faces many difficulties. This editorial highlights contextual challenges to conducting research and developing the field in Cameroon and recommends pathways for improvement.

    Scarcity of SEM education programs

    The relative absence of formal training programmes in SEM represents a major challenge to the expansion of SEM research in Cameroon. Contemporary curricula represent the starting point for the development of any field and guide health research.3 4 In Cameroon, the SEM curricula are not available in most existing medical schools. The University of Yaounde I offers a 2-year master’s degree in sports medicine, and a few other universities and institutes offer only a 3–5-year curriculum in general physiotherapy and/or rehabilitation with both research and sports medicine as elective teaching modules. Thus, knowledge and awareness of SEM as a clinical specialty and the methods and priorities …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors DM was the one who developed the content for this editorial.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.