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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 …
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.