Based in a Nursing Home

This article describes the processes, scope, strengths, and weaknesses involved in the develop-ment of a program aimed at facilitating clinician-initiated research in a nursing home. The benefits such a program provides to clinicians, residents, researchers, and the institution are discussed, and examples of specific programs are provided. Some of the general areas that need to be addressed in making such a program successful include bridging the gap between the clinician’s and the researcher’s orientation, generating a working agreement regarding division of work and benefits, and developing a resourceful, creative, and realistic approach to the limitation of resources. Despite these obstacles, this program offers unique opportunities for narrowing the gap between research and practice to benefit both. Whereas there are approximately 19,100 nursing homes in the United States (National Center for Health Statistics, 1989), only about 15 of them have research departments or institutes (Cohen-Mansfield, Lawton, & Riskin, 1990; Cohen-Mansfield, Wemer, & Forester, 1992). Most of these research departments, which were established between 1960 and 1986, are affiliated with large long-term care facilities. Given the ongoing growth of nursing home care use, research related to nursing home issues is of extreme importance. Research institutes based in long-term care facilities constitute a unique environment in which to encounter problems particular to the nursing home due to their accessibility to both clinicians and residents. Their close relationship to an academic and an applied setting provides an excep-tional fit for the integration of research and clinical activities. Some such research departments were indeed established, in part, to help clinical staff members address everyday problems in the nursing home in a more scientifi