Parasuicide in Older Adults: Relationship to Interpersonal Problem Solving

Previous surveys of clinical psychologists have found that they have little involvement in research and so are perhaps not functioning within the Scientist-Practitioner model that the profession advocates. However such surveys have used limited outcome variables (eg number of publications) to assess research involvement and have largely neglected to examine variables associated with research involvement. This study used a new questionnaire (the Research Involvement of Psychologists Scale) which comprises 22 items pertaining to involvement in research production, 4 items pertaining to use of research in clinical practice, and 10 items measuring attitudes towards research. The latter were reduced to 8 items following item analysis of the scale. Total scores were computed for each of these 3 sections of the questionnaire. Clinical psychologists working within the Glasgow Directorate were surveyed. A 72% response rate was achieved and, contrary to findings from other surveys, this sample reported current involvement in a wide range of research activities and can therefore be said to be functioning within the Scientist-Practitioner framework. Attitudes towards research were generally positive, and more positive attitudes were associated with greater current involvement in research. Clinical psychologists who held split clinical/academic posts, and those who had a PhD or were registered for a further degree reported significantly more involvement in and significantly more positive attitudes towards research than did their counterparts. Grade Bs reported significantly more involvement in research than did Grade As