Occupational therapy's challenge: caregiving and research.

This article is based on the closing General Session presentation at the 1984 AOTA Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. The paper addresses the need for clinicians to become committed to research endeavors. The occupational therapy profession must heighten its commitment to the systematic documentation of its principles and the efficacy of its therapeutic approaches. The practicing clinician has the potential to maximize the outcome of these endeavors by contributing current practice knowledge and by participating in research projects themselves. The factors that seem to be having an impact on clinicians are addressed. External factors include social, technological, and economic pressures, and internal factors include lack of knowledge about the research process and the resulting anxieties about approaching a new territory. Acknowledging these factors, a variety of proposals are made to help the clinician make the transition to clinical researcher.