We welcome comments in the PEDro blog. All comments will be moderated. We only accept comments which are respectful, professional and based on evidence. If a post relates to a research paper, please read the full paper before submitting your comment.
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A reminder to guide practice using information from the full-text (not abstract) of research articles
Earlier this year a study assessed the accuracy of abstracts of articles reporting the results of randomised controlled trials evaluating physiotherapy interventions for low back pain. The main findings were that abstracts were often incomplete, contained spin, and were inconsistent with the full-text of the article. The authors concluded that physiotherapists should not rely on…
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Systematic review found that neuromuscular training reduces anterior cruciate ligament injury in female athletes
This systematic review compared neuromuscular training to any other intervention for preventing anterior cruciate injury in female athletes. Women were the focus of this evaluation because they are about three times more likely than men to injure their anterior cruciate ligament. The primary outcome was the number of anterior cruciate ligament injuries, but a precise…
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#MyPTArticleOfTheMonth – what is Cornelia Barth reading?
Cornelia A Barth is a physiotherapist with Master of Science qualifications from University College London. She spent the last decade in humanitarian missions in countries in Africa and the Middle East. Cornelia is currently the Physiotherapy Advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. This position involves supervising physiotherapists in about 150…
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#MyPTArticleOfTheMonth resource – the dance of the p-values
One of issues that has prompted statisticians and journals to call for the use of significance testing and hypothesis testing to be discontinued is that p-values are not replicable. That is, if you repeat an experiment (each time randomly drawing a new sample from the population) you are likely to get a very different p-value.…
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PEDro celebrates World Physical Therapy Day
World Physical Therapy Day was on 8 September, the theme for 2019 is chronic pain. Chronic pain is a significant global health burden. It is estimated that 1.5 billion people, around 20% of the world’s population, experience a chronic pain condition. Physiotherapists play a key role in the prevention and management of chronic pain. There…
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PEDro update (2 September 2019)
PEDro contains 44,597 records. In the 2 September 2019 update you will find: 34,835 reports of randomised controlled trials (34,015 of these trials have confirmed ratings of methodological quality using the PEDro scale) 9,089 reports of systematic reviews, and 673 reports of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. pedro.org.au
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Time to move from significance testing to estimation
A Research Note published in the latest issue of the Journal of Physiotherapy argues the case for moving away from significance tests and hypothesis tests in health research. The central reason is that p-values and claims of statistical significance (that is, the products of null hypothesis statistical tests), have some inherent flaws and are often…
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Systematic review found that exercise may have similar effects to antihypertensive medications in reducing blood pressure
This systematic review evaluated how different types and intensities of exercise compared against different classes and doses of antihypertensive medications in lowering systolic blood pressure levels. The review included randomised controlled trials that were conducted in adults with or without hypertension but no cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes or other chronic condition such as cancer.…
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Lancet series on gender equality, norms and health
One of the United Nation’s ‘Sustainable Development Goals of 2030’ is gender equality. The focus is on equitable access to economic independence, technology, education, as well as general and reproductive healthcare for all. The Lancet recently published a series of five papers on ‘Gender Equality, Norms, and Health’. The series provides in depth analysis about…
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Changes in the top 10 countries using PEDro over 10 years (2010-2019)
We have animated the 10 countries with the highest PEDro usage each year for the last 10 years. Data are from 2010 to 2019. This video is fascinating to watch. Keep your eye on “Brazil”!
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#MyPTArticleOfTheMonth – what is Lou James reading?
Lou James (MNZM) is a New Zealand physiotherapist with expertise in oncology. The number of people surviving or living longer after a cancer diagnosis is increasing and is projected to rise to 21.7 million by 2029. While cancer treatments are lengthening lives, they are also creating a whole host of new problems that can affect…
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#MyPTArticleOfTheMonth – response to the campaign so far
Many physiotherapists have taken up the #MyPTArticleOfTheMonth challenge and have been sharing their reading with the global physiotherapy community. Most posts have been articles reporting the results of randomised controlled trials. There have also been posts about reviews, large cohort studies, and diagnostic studies. The importance of evaluating treatment fidelity and the reporting of 95%…
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PEDro indexes 44,000+ reports
We are pleased to announce that PEDro has just achieved a new milestone for the amount of evidence. There are now 44,000+ reports of trials, reviews and guidelines indexed on PEDro.
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PEDro update (5 August 2019)
PEDro contains 44,309 records. In the 5 August 2019 update you will find: 34,619 reports of randomised controlled trials (33,782 of these trials have confirmed ratings of methodological quality using the PEDro scale) 9,004 reports of systematic reviews, and 686 reports of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. pedro.org.au
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Systematic review found that scoliosis-specific exercise may reduce spinal curvature
The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the effectiveness of scoliosis-specific exercises compared with other non-surgical interventions for adolescent with idiopathic scoliosis. Studies were eligible if they were randomised controlled trials evaluating scoliosis-specific exercises in participants with idiopathic scoliosis (defined as a primary Cobb angle of at least 10 degrees) and aged between…
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Keeping up-to-date with clinical research: an evaluation of PEDro’s “Evidence in your inbox”
The PEDro team presented a paper evaluating the impact of “Evidence in your inbox” at the 13th International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine World Congress in Kobe, Japan in June 2019. The abstract for the paper is below. If you are interested in subscribing to “Evidence in your inbox” please visit the PEDro web-site.…
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Allocation concealment and intention-to-treat analysis do not influence the treatment effects of physiotherapy interventions in low back pain trials
A recently published meta-epidemiological study has evaluated if allocation concealment and intention-to-treat analysis influence the size of treatment effects of randomised controlled trials evaluating physiotherapy interventions for people with low back pain. Five databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, PEDro, CINAHL) were searched to identify low back pain trials that compared physiotherapy intervention…
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Nominate a trial for PEDro’s Top 5 Trials in 2014-2019
PEDro will celebrate its 20th anniversary in October 2019. To mark this important milestone we want to identify 5 of the most important randomised controlled trials in physiotherapy published in the years 2014-2019. High-quality randomised controlled trials are essential for physiotherapy practice and teaching. Back in 2014 we commemorated PEDro’s 15th birthday by identifying the…
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Anne Moseley reflects on the value of PEDro at #WCPT2019
Associate Professor Anne Moseley was recently interviewed at the World Confederation for Physical Therapy 2019 Congress in Geneva about the value of PEDro. At the Congress she received the prestigious Mildred Elson award for her leadership and commitment to the promotion of evidence-based physiotherapy through PEDro. Watch the video to find out how PEDro started…
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#MyPTArticleOfTheMonth – what is Kate Scrivener reading?
Dr Kate Scrivener is a clinician, researcher and educator in neurological physiotherapy in Sydney, Australia. Kate has expertise in rehabilitation after stroke, with a particular interest in using exercise and technology to empower people with stroke to drive their rehabilitation. She is a Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University and is part of the StrokeEd Collaboration.…
