Occupational Therapists at the NIH Clinical Center conduct quantitative and qualitative collaborative research as associate investigators with NIH institute scientists and nursing. In addition to data collection for protocol initiatives, therapists analyze collected data to inform the scientific community at large about the role and benefit of occupational therapy intervention, and functional interpretation of protocol outcomes.
Examples of therapists' research include assessing functional ability as an outcome measure of drug trials, identifying gold standard outcome measures to understand disease impact on daily function for rare disease populations, helping to determine the phenotypic expressions of childhood disorders, describing motor patterns and response to motor training for people with hand dystonia, evaluating the experience of cooking in underserved or at risk populations, and analyzing qualitative data derived from occupational therapy interviews for those with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) to identify patient’s perspectives on symptoms and the impact of health on function.