Rehabilitation Counselors’ Use and Perceptions of Peer-Reviewed Publications

Abstract

Peer-reviewed publications are one way for researchers to communicate information about service delivery to rehabilitation counselors. However, little is known about rehabilitation counselors’ actual use of peer-reviewed publications. Thus, the current research explored the extent to which rehabilitation counselors (N = 334) read and use peer-reviewed publications, factors associated with their reading and using peer-reviewed publications, and several items assessing their judgments about peer-reviewed publications. Overall, we found that rehabilitation counselors used peer-reviewed publications a moderate amount, held generally positive judgments about peer-reviewed publications, and reported wanting to use information from peer-reviewed publications with a greater percentage of clients than they actually did. We also found that counselors’ reading and using of peer-reviewed publications increased as counselor opinions of peer-reviewed publications were more positive and as counselors perceived their professional organizations, universities, agencies, and supervisors encouraged reading and using peer-reviewed publication. Collectively, we believe the current study is useful for researchers to generate and communicate research to rehabilitation counselors.