Abstract
[Extract] Evidence-based practice involves physical therapists incorporating high-quality clinical research on treatment efficacy into their clinical decision-making. However, if clinical interventions are not adequately reported in the literature, physical therapists face an important barrier to using effective interventions for their patients. Previous studies have reported that incomplete description of interventions is a problem in reports of randomized controlled trials in many health areas. One of these studies examined 133 trials of non-pharmacological interventions. The experimental intervention was inadequately described in over 60% of the trials and descriptions of the control interventions were even worse.
A recent study evaluated the completeness of descriptions of the physical therapy interventions in a sample of 200 randomized controlled trials published in 2013. Overall, the interventions were poorly described. For the intervention groups, about one-quarter of the trials did not fulfill at least half of the criteria. Reporting for the control groups was even worse, with around three-quarters of trials not fulfilling at least half of the criteria. In other words, for the majority of the physical therapy trials, clinicians and researchers would be unable to replicate the interventions that were tested.
A recent study evaluated the completeness of descriptions of the physical therapy interventions in a sample of 200 randomized controlled trials published in 2013. Overall, the interventions were poorly described. For the intervention groups, about one-quarter of the trials did not fulfill at least half of the criteria. Reporting for the control groups was even worse, with around three-quarters of trials not fulfilling at least half of the criteria. In other words, for the majority of the physical therapy trials, clinicians and researchers would be unable to replicate the interventions that were tested.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 366-367 |
Number of pages | 2 |
Journal | Pediatric Physical Therapy |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2016 |