Levels of evidence of articles published in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine journals

Paci, Matteo; Briganti, Gennaro; Lombardi, Bruna

doi:10.2340/16501977-0665

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are traditionally considered the gold standard for examining the efficacy of interventions. In the field of physiotherapy, RCTs represent a small part of the totality of research articles, but their rate is comparable to other disciplines [ 13 – 15 ]. The number of RCTs published in physiotherapy journals [ 14 ] and the quality of RCTs in physiotherapy field [ 16 – 18 ] show an increase over years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors associated with citation rate of randomised controlled trials in physiotherapy

Paci

Landi²,

Briganti

et al. 2015

Arch Physiother

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BackgroundDespite the use of citation rate as a measure of quality of research is strongly criticized and debated, it remain a widely used method to evaluate performances of researchers, articles and journals. The aim of this study was to test which factors are associated with citation rate of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) published on the physiotherapy field.MethodsAll RCTs abstracted in the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), indexed in Scopus database and published in 2008 were included. PEDro score, language of publication, indexing in PubMed database, type of access to articles, subdiscipline, the number of authors, the country where the study was performed, the type of institution where the study was conducted and the number of centres involved in the study (multicentric vs single-centre). and the 2013 5-year impact factor of the publishing journals were considered as independent variables. Citation rate until December 2013 was extracted from Scopus database and used as dependent variable.ResultsSix hundred and nineteen RCTs, published in 283 journals, were included and analysed. The 5-year impact factor was the strongest variable associated with the citation rate and explained approximately 50 % of the variance, and the number of authors explained an additional small part (about 1 %) of variability. The other variables were excluded from the model.ConclusionsThe study highlights that 5-year Impact Factor, not accessibility (language of publication, indexing in PubMed database or the type of access to articles) or reported quality (PEDro score), is a strong predictor of the number of citations for RCTs in the physiotherapy field. Our findings support the increasingly widespread idea that citation analysis does not reflect the scientific merit of the cited work, at least in terms of reported quality.The results of this study need to be confirmed with a publication window larger than one year.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors associated with citation rate of randomised controlled trials in physiotherapy

Paci

Landi²,

Briganti

et al. 2015

Arch Physiother

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“…The proportion of articles classified as level I evidence was about 10% of all articles evaluated. This may be higher than the level I evidence published in Brazilian medical journals (4%) 7 but it is lower than the surveys of international physical therapy journals (about 15%) 3 , 6 , 13 . The publication of level I evidence (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Description of research design of articles published in four Brazilian physical therapy journals

Saragiotto

Costa

Oliveira

et al. 2014

Braz. J. Phys. Ther.

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BackgroundWhile the research design of articles published in medical journals and in some physical therapy journals has already been evaluated, this has not been investigated in Brazilian physical therapy journals. ObjectiveTo describe the research design used in all articles published in Brazilian scientific journals that are freely available, have high Qualis rankings, and are relevant to physical therapy over a 7-year period. MethodWe extracted the bibliometric data, research design, research type (human or animal), and clinical area for all articles published. The articles were grouped into their level of evidence, and descriptive analyses were performed. We calculated the frequency, proportions of articles, and 95% confidence interval of these proportions with each research design in each journal. We cross-tabulated the clinical areas with research designs (expressed as number and percentages). ResultsA total of 1,458 articles from four Brazilian journals were found: Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia, Revista Fisioterapia em Movimento, Revista Fisioterapia e Pesquisa, and Revista Acta Fisiátrica. The majority of articles were classified as level II of evidence (60%), followed by level III (29%) and level I (10%). The most prevalent research designs were cross-sectional studies (38%), single-case or case-series studies, and narrative reviews. Most articles reported human research and were in the musculoskeletal, neurologic, and cardiothoracic areas. ConclusionsMost of the research published in Brazilian physical therapy journals used levels II and III of evidence. Increasing the publication rate of systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials would provide more high-quality evidence to guide evidence-based physical therapy practice.

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“…This is best exemplified by the recent recommendations against the widespread use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs after musculoskeletal injury, particularly with muscle strains (Paoloni, Milne, Orchard, & Hamilton, 2009). It is important to note that in recent years; the volume of high quality published research has increased in Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine domains (Bleakley and MacAuley, 2002;Paci, Briganti & Lombardi, 2011;Paci, Cigna, Baccini & Rinaldi, 2009). This is not yet reflected in the literature pertaining to acute soft tissue injury management and further patient centred clinical research is essential.…”

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confidence: 96%

Acute soft tissue injury management: Past, present and future

Bleakley

2013

Physical Therapy in Sport

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Levels of evidence of articles published in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine journals

Abstract: The distribution of different types of article in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine journals is similar to that in other disciplines. No increase in articles with a high level of evidence was found in the selected journals over the period of study.

Cited by 12 publications

References 9 publications

Factors associated with citation rate of randomised controlled trials in physiotherapy

Factors associated with citation rate of randomised controlled trials in physiotherapy

Description of research design of articles published in four Brazilian physical therapy journals

Acute soft tissue injury management: Past, present and future

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