In December 2019 we published a study assessing the completeness of content reporting of exercise interventions in randomised controlled trials for patients with rotator cuff disease and the inter-rater reliability of the Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template (CERT).
Independent pairs of reviewers applied the CERT to all 34 exercise trials from the most recent Cochrane Review; “Manual therapy and exercise for patients with rotator cuff disease”.
We used the CERT Explanation and Elaboration Statement (link:https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/23/1428) 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.
We found that 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.
Authors: Daniel H Major, Yngve Røe, Margreth Grotle, Rebecca L Jessup, Caitlin Farmer, Milada Cvancarova Småstuen, Rachelle Buchbinder
Link to open-access full text: https://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000656
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