Article Text
Abstract
Background Exercise interventions are frequently recommended for patients with rotator cuff disease, but poor content reporting in clinical trials of exercise limits interpretation and replication of trials and clinicians’ ability to deliver effective exercise protocols. The Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template (CERT) was developed to address this problem.
Objective To assess completeness of content reporting of exercise interventions in randomised controlled trials for patients with rotator cuff disease and the inter-rater reliability of the CERT.
Design Critical appraisal.
Methods Independent pairs of reviewers applied the CERT to all 34 exercise trials from the most recent Cochrane Review evaluating the effect of manual therapy and exercise for patients with rotator cuff disease. We used the CERT Explanation and Elaboration Statement to guide assessment of whether each of the 19-item criteria were clearly described (score 0–19; higher scores indicate better reporting). Percentage agreement and the prevalence and bias adjusted kappa (PABAK) coefficient were used to measure inter-rater reliability.
Results The median CERT score was 5 (range 0–16). Percentage agreement was high for 15 items and acceptable for 4 items. The PABAK coefficient indicated excellent (5 items), substantial (11 items) and moderate (3 items) inter-rater agreement.
Conclusion The description of exercise interventions for patients with rotator cuff disease in published trials is poorly reported. Overall, the inter-rater reliability of the CERT is high/acceptable. We strongly encourage journals to mandate use of the CERT for papers reporting trial protocols and results investigating exercise interventions.
- exercise
- shoulder
- reporting guidelines
- publication quality
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Footnotes
Twitter @danielhmajor
Contributors RB and DHM conceived the study and all authors contributed to its design and content. DHM, YR, MG, RLJ and CF conducted the review of the included studies. DHM and MCS conducted the data analysis. DHM wrote the first draft of the article. All authors contributed to the revisions of the article. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests RB was the senior investigator and guarantor for the development of the CERT.
Patient and public involvement statement There were no patient or public involvement in this research
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request.