Clinical Information Behavior of Rehabilitation Therapists: A Review of the Research on Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, And Speech-Language Pathologists (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Rehabilitation therapists--including occupational therapists (OTs), physical therapists (PTs, also called physiotherapists), and speech-language pathologists (SLPs, also called speech therapists)--represent a growing proportion of health professionals and are central to health care delivery. As practitioners, rehabilitation therapists engage in information behavior: they identify information needs, decide whether or not to seek answers to these needs, engage in information-seeking behaviors, and then decide how to use information to improve patient care. Even so, rehabilitation therapists are neglected in the literature on information behavior in library and information studies. As a result, little is known about what information needs arise in rehabilitation therapists' everyday practice and how they cope with these needs through information seeking and use. This review synthesizes existing research relevant to rehabilitation therapists' clinical information behavior and identifies gaps, particularly compared to what is known about other health professionals, such as physicians.