Physical Therapy and Research

Productivity Fellowships for Research: Physical Education, Physical Therapy, Speech Language Pathology and Audiology and Occupational Therapy.

Reporting ethical protections in physical therapy research.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Efforts to make physical therapy more evidence based have increased demand for human participants, raising concerns for their safety and welfare. This study examined how often research articles in physical therapy journals report basic ethical protections. METHODS We carried out a retrospective audit of research articles in 6 physical therapy journals between 1996 and 2...

Research productivity grants: Physical Education, Physical Therapy, Speech Pathology, and Occupational Therapy

The research productivity grants (PQ) distributed annually by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico-CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) have generated a number of concerns in the scientific community. It is the purpose of this editorial to shed light on the criteria adopted by the Multidisciplinary Health Advisory Committee (AC) for grant...

Outcomes research: shifting the dominant research paradigm in physical therapy.

This article discusses outcomes research in physical therapy and places its conceptual roots within the work on quality-of-care assessment. An argument is advanced that the outcomes research movement in medicine has stimulated clinical researchers in physical therapy to address disability outcomes in addition to traditional impairment outcomes. If physical therapy clinical research moves beyond...

Human Nature and Research Paradigms: Theory Meets Physical Therapy Practice

Human nature is a very complex phenomenon. In physical therapy this complexity is enhanced by the need to understand the intersection between the art and science of human behavior and patient care. A paradigm is a set of basic beliefs that represent a worldview, defines the nature of the world and the individuals place in it, and helps to determine criteria used to select and define research in...