Current Journal Article Provision for the Physical Therapy Clinicians of One Department A Clinical Report

Studies of human service profession-als, such as mental health and rehabili-tation counseling supervisors, social workers, physicians, and physical ther-apists, have revealed a primary prefer-ence among these professionals for in-formation sources other than journal articles.1-6 Journals are, nonetheless, a rich source of relatively current infor-mation that is thought by many physical therapists to be useful in their practice.7 Moreover, journals are still primary me-diums through which research findings are communicated. These findings, being objective, may provide a more valid rationale for care than 'Vise and experienced " teachers, "well-known" practitioners, "private opinions, " un-tested hypotheses, or "before and after" comparisons of client status.8 Brau sug-gests that research may provide the most legitimate foundation for "standards of care."9 Therefore, journal articles, par-ticularly those summarizing current re-search, remain a potentially important source of information to the physical therapy clinician. If, as Hightower has suggested, finding relevant information is one of the great-est barriers to clinical practice,6 then human service professionals who are in-terested in fostering staff development may consider current article provision to be one method for fostering infor-mation utilization. Although this method may be practiced by some phys-ical therapy departments, we are una-ware of any descriptions or evaluations of the procedure. The purpose of this clinical report is to describe our proce-dure for providing current journal arti-cles and to describe the staffs ' responses to the procedure