Article type
Year
Abstract
Introduction:
One analysis found that 67% of drug treatment descriptions were adequate compared with only 29% of non-drug treatments. Physiotherapy is a non-drug health specialty that includes exercise, electrotherapy, thermal treatments etc. Such treatment procedures require clear descriptions of each element followed in the trials in order to be applicable in practice.
Objective:
To discover whether description of procedures were improving in trials published in 2013 when compared to trials published in 2005 from the five top, core journals of physiotherapy.
Methods:
The top five core journals selected were: Physical Therapy, Journal of Physiotherapy, Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Clinical Rehabilitation, Journal of Orthopedic Sports & Physiotherapy. Studies for which full texts were not available were excluded. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) from five journals were identified and 50% of these were randomly selected and analyzed for the seven items of Setting, Recipient, Provider, Procedure, Materials, Intensity and schedule, with the items being analyzed separately for experimental and control groups for the last four items. The items were marked as ‘Yes - if element of intervention clearly described’ or ‘No - if not adequately described’. An eighth item of ‘Overall’ was given ‘Yes - only if the all other items were marked ‘Yes’ and rated separately for experimental and control groups. Two raters individually rated all the checklists and disagreements were resolved by discussion.
Results and Discussion:
59 and 160 RCTs were identified from the five journals for the years 2005 and 2013 respectively. Thirty and 85 RCTs were selected randomly from 2005 and 2013, respectively, and included in analysis. Overall, 43% and 51% of the interventions were adequately described for the years 2005 and 2013, respectively.
Conclusion:
Description of interventions in physiotherapy literature is adequate. However, there is room for improvement especially in describing the procedure and clearly mentioning the schedule.
Keywords: non-pharmacology, procedure, methods
One analysis found that 67% of drug treatment descriptions were adequate compared with only 29% of non-drug treatments. Physiotherapy is a non-drug health specialty that includes exercise, electrotherapy, thermal treatments etc. Such treatment procedures require clear descriptions of each element followed in the trials in order to be applicable in practice.
Objective:
To discover whether description of procedures were improving in trials published in 2013 when compared to trials published in 2005 from the five top, core journals of physiotherapy.
Methods:
The top five core journals selected were: Physical Therapy, Journal of Physiotherapy, Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Clinical Rehabilitation, Journal of Orthopedic Sports & Physiotherapy. Studies for which full texts were not available were excluded. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) from five journals were identified and 50% of these were randomly selected and analyzed for the seven items of Setting, Recipient, Provider, Procedure, Materials, Intensity and schedule, with the items being analyzed separately for experimental and control groups for the last four items. The items were marked as ‘Yes - if element of intervention clearly described’ or ‘No - if not adequately described’. An eighth item of ‘Overall’ was given ‘Yes - only if the all other items were marked ‘Yes’ and rated separately for experimental and control groups. Two raters individually rated all the checklists and disagreements were resolved by discussion.
Results and Discussion:
59 and 160 RCTs were identified from the five journals for the years 2005 and 2013 respectively. Thirty and 85 RCTs were selected randomly from 2005 and 2013, respectively, and included in analysis. Overall, 43% and 51% of the interventions were adequately described for the years 2005 and 2013, respectively.
Conclusion:
Description of interventions in physiotherapy literature is adequate. However, there is room for improvement especially in describing the procedure and clearly mentioning the schedule.
Keywords: non-pharmacology, procedure, methods