The Importance of Program Evaluation: Introduction to the Evaluation of a Community Program for Developmentally Disabled Adults

Objective documentation of patient progress in occupational therapy is required by payment agencies and administrators; this has become an increasingly important part of our work. We often hear our colleagues express the wish that they had the time and knew how to do some studies to show that their program is really producing positive results in the day-to-day treatment of patients. Yet, few clinicians can organize and conduct the kind of group comparison studies that would be needed.