Bmc Med Res Methodol
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Dec 2018
Randomized Controlled TrialStrategies and challenges associated with recruiting retirement village communities and residents into a group exercise intervention.
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide the highest level of scientific evidence, but successful participant recruitment is critical to ensure the external and internal validity of results. This study describes the strategies associated with recruiting older adults at increased falls risk residing in retirement villages into an 18-month cluster RCT designed to evaluate the effects of a dual-task exercise program on falls and physical and cognitive function. ⋯ This study highlights that there are significant challenges associated with recruiting sufficient numbers of older adults from independent living retirement villages into an exercise intervention designed to improve health and well-being.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Dec 2018
Methods for trustworthy nutritional recommendations NutriRECS (Nutritional Recommendations and accessible Evidence summaries Composed of Systematic reviews): a protocol.
Recent systematic reviews and editorials suggest that many organizations that produce nutritional guideline recommendations do not adhere to internationally recognized standards set forth by the Institute of Medicine (IoM), Guidelines International Network (GIN), Appraisal of Guidelines Research and Evaluation (AGREE), and Grading Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE). ⋯ Adhering to international guideline standards, conducting high quality systematic reviews, and actively assessing the values and preferences of key stakeholders is expected to improve the quality of nutritional guidelines and their relevance to end-users, particularly patients and community members. We will send our work for peer review, and if found acceptable, we will publish our nutritional recommendations in top-tier general medicine journals.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Dec 2018
Protocol for the development of a core outcome set for pelvic girdle pain, including methods for measuring the outcomes: the PGP-COS study.
Pelvic Girdle Pain (PGP) is an important cause of disability and economic cost worldwide. There is a need for effective preventative and management strategies. Emerging studies measure a variety of outcomes rendering synthesis and translation to clinical practice difficult. A Core Outcome Set (COS) can address this problem by ensuring that data are relevant, useful and usable for making well-informed healthcare choices. The aim of this study is to develop a consensus-based PGP-COS, including agreement on methods (e.g. instruments) for measuring the construct outcomes in the COS for use in research and clinical practice. Furthermore, as there is uncertainty as to whether incorporating stakeholder interviews in addition to conducting a systematic review to determine an initial list of outcomes for the Delphi survey, or, whether using different rating scales in a Delphi survey impacts on the final COS, we propose to embed two methodological studies within the PGP-COS development process to address these questions. ⋯ This PGP-COS was registered with COMET (Core Outcome Measures for Effectiveness Trials) in January 2017 ( http://www.comet-initiative.org/studies/details/958 ).