Exercise interventions are currently being poorly reported in the literature 

1. In this overview of systematic reviews, characteristics of exercise interventions such as “when”, “how much” as well as detailed descriptions were poorly reported across a range of studies.

2. Furthermore, the quality of systematic reviews included in this study ranged from critically low to moderate in quality.

Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good)

Compared with trials of medicines, the methodologies of exercise trials tend to be poorly reported. Tools such as the Consensus on Exercise reporting Template (CERT) and the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) were developed to improve poor reporting. Though many systematic reviews have investigated the quality of reporting of exercise interventions, these have not yet been synthesized. As a result, the aim of the present systematic review is to determine how well exercise interventions have been reported in the literature.

From 7804 identified records, 28 systematic reviews (1467 studies comprising 1724 interventions) were included from database inception up to July 2021. Studies were included if they primarily assessed the quality of exercise intervention reporting using either the CERT or TIDieR tools. Review quality was assessed using a modified version of A Measurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR 2). Data was synthesized using simple descriptive statistics for each item of each relevant tool.

The results demonstrated that characteristics of exercise interventions described using CERT or TIDieR (such as “when”, “how much” as well as detailed descriptions) were poorly reported across a range of studies. Furthermore, the quality of systematic reviews ranged from critically low to moderate in quality. However, the study was limited by the fact that the authors chose to only include data extracted from the main articles and supplemental materials, rather than actively seeking out protocols or contacting trial authors which may have impacted the completeness of the reporting. Nonetheless, the present study sheds light on the need for high quality reporting in order to improve translation in clinical settings.

Click to read the study in British Journal of Sports Medicine

Image: PD

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