Paradigms in physiotherapy research: An analysis of 68 Swedish doctoral dissertations

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present and apply a conceptual model for classifying physiotherapy research on the basis of scientific articles and to investigate how different scientific traditions are expressed within such research. All 68 doctoral dissertations at Swedish universities written by physiotherapists between 1977 and 1997 were included (n = 346 articles). These articles were independently assessed by one physiotherapist and one philosopher, according to seven different paradigmatic dimensions. The design used was most often preactive and experimental, and although many generated rather than tested hypotheses, almost all attempted to generalise the results. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data was common, and many asked questions related to the meaning or the significance of experience. In most of the studies, however, quantitative analysis of data was employed. Based on the seven different dimensions of the conceptual model, we conclude that physiotherapists are rather eclectic in their approach and combine elements from different paradigms. Thus, there seems to be no single scientific ideal that could be called ‘the paradigm of physiotherapy research’.