Research productivity of chiropractic college faculty

There is a growing need for research to further the goals of the chiropractic profession. Because of available resources, chiropractic faculty may be in the best position to accomplish much of the profession's research needs. A widely used method of assessing faculty research productivity is to count the number of peer-reviewed research publications over a selected time frame.

To investigate the research productivity of chiropractic college faculty and identify parameters associated with increased peer-reviewed publication.

A survey was administered to collect data in a cross-sectional design.

Data were collected through a survey administered to all full-time chiropractic college faculty working in the United States. Although the survey addressed many scholarly activities, the criterion variable selected for this study is the number of peer-reviewed journal articles published over the past 3 yr.

Three groups of faculty had more publications: those primarily assigned to research, those with either a D.C. degree or a D.C. and Ph.D. degree, and finally those with a rank of full professor. Faculty age and gender were not associated with the reported number of publications. The majority of faculty members (72.2%) have not published a single peer-reviewed article in the last 3 yr. Less than 2% of the faculty members has published 10 or more peer-reviewed articles in the last 3 yr.

Many faculty are not involved in research activities. Faculty development and incentive programs need to be implemented to stimulate these individuals. Increasing faculty research activities benefits the faculty, their institutions and their profession.