Applied research, is conducted to discover knowledge which can be implemented directly into practice. Clinical research is considered applied research. In physical therapy both basic and applied research serve a vital purpose. Often, applied or clinical research is mentioned as a less significant class of research behind basic research. This is not necessarily true.
Clinical research offers an advantage of being immediate and direct.
With health care reform on the horizon, clinical research needs to done and can assist in achieving immediate accountability by justifying measurement, and assessing the effects of various types of treatment. The results of clinical research have important implications to another very popular phrase, functional outcome. Only through good clinical research can functional outcome measures be meaningful. This prerequisite will eventually require the recruitment of clinicians with varying backgrounds and abilities to become active in some stage of the research process. Those who are successful at measuring functional outcomes will in essence be those who are following the basic principles of proper clinical research.