Welcome to the PEDro World-Wide Journal Club. The purpose of the PEDro World-Wide Journal Club is to encourage the global physiotherapy community to read trials, reviews and guidelines that have important implications for clinical practice. We hope that facilitating discussion of this research will help physiotherapists to implement the results into their clinical practice.
Journal clubs are a great way to translate research into practice. In March 2020 PEDro published a blog that outlined some key features of running a successful journal club. Since then, PEDro has run seven journal clubs which have been well received. The idea is for physiotherapists to use resources provided by PEDro as the basis for running a local journal club with their peers.
This PEDro World-Wide Journal Club is the first to focus on a research topic. It discusses issues raised in two short papers that explain why it is important to focus on the between-group difference as the estimate of the effect on an intervention in randomised controlled trials. If you are interested in being involved, please follow these five steps.
- Invite your colleagues to be involved
- Read the article – Kamper SJ. Blinding: Linking Evidence to Practice. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 2018;48(10):825-826
- Read the article – Devereux PJ, et al. Physician interpretations and textbook definitions of blinding terminology in randomized controlled trials. JAMA 2001;285(15):2000-2003
- Watch (or listen to) the video of the panel discussing the topic
- Meet with your colleagues to have your own discussion about interpreting comparative effects in trials
This discussion should focus on the implications of the papers’ demonstration of the importance of blinding in reducing bias from affecting the results of randomised trials. You should consider the areas of clinical practice of the members of the group, and consider how blinding or lack of blinding might affect a trial’s outcomes. In particular, consider which common interventions in your subdiscipline that it might be possible to blind. Where such blinding is not possible, consider which typical outcome measures might be particularly exposed to bias due to lack of blinding.
If you are interested in being involved, please visit the PEDro web-site for more information.
