Explaining Faculty Members' Experience about the Process of Attending to an International Conferences: A Mixed Methods Research

Introduction: Attendance at conferences is considered as a professional necessity for most of the researchers and scientists. Currently, no study has been conducted in Iran to evaluate the pros and cons of attending to the medical international conferences. The aim of this study was to determine the problems and consequences of attendance at conference, as well as its academic benefits and scientific-professional promotions.   Methods: This mixed-method study was conducted on faculty members' of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences attending to International conferences between January 2014 and 2015 in in two separate and sequential phases. The first phase was a qualitative approach, content thematic analysis, that was conducted through purposeful sampling based on literature review and interview with key informants’ faculty members.The second phase, the quantitative one, was conducted by an electronic questionnaire to collect faculty members’ viewpoints for improving the process. Results: Based on the first phase results, four main themes were indicated to be important in the attendance process: 1 & 2) problems and consequences of the attendance process; 3) scientific and professional promotion due to the attendance; and 4) usefulness and academic benefits. Scientific level of conferences (15.0%) and transport and accommodation (28.0%) were the most prevalent problems and consequences, respectively; whereas familiarity with new topics and ideas (20.0%) was for the promotion one. Conclusions: According to the quantitative phase results, it seems that International conferences were considered very important for professional developments; however, the problems and consequences of attending to these events overcome to its benefits.