Program evaluation guidelines for the rehabilitation professional

The overall purpose of the present chapter was to provide a set of guidelines to new rehabilitation investigators for conducting program evaluation in the burgeoning field of clinical rehabilitation. The specific objectives were to encourage investigators to develop a research consultation network, consider the benefits of utilizing a theoretical framework in specifying program objectives, assess program implementation, and to discuss the need and methods for ensuring high quality data. There is currently a widening gap in the United States and Canada between rehabilitation professionals who provide clinical services and those who conduct research on the effects of rehabilitation interventions. This is a matter of great concern and consequence. Without a firm commitment to evaluation, clinical rehabilitation practice may ultimately flounder in the mire of conjecture and ad hominem debate characteristic of therapeutic movements that have come and gone (e.g., the human potential movement). It is essential for the life of the discipline that rehabilitation programs be firmly grounded in both humanitarian and scientific principles.