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Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy

BACKGROUND: Since the early 2000s, a number of publications in the medical literature have highlighted inadequacies in the design, conduct and reporting of pilot trials. This work led to two notable publications in 2016: a conceptual framework for defining feasibility studies and an extension to the...

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Autores principales: Horne, Elsie, Lancaster, Gillian A., Matson, Rhys, Cooper, Ashley, Ness, Andy, Leary, Sam
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6048748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30026962
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40814-018-0317-1
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author Horne, Elsie
Lancaster, Gillian A.
Matson, Rhys
Cooper, Ashley
Ness, Andy
Leary, Sam
author_facet Horne, Elsie
Lancaster, Gillian A.
Matson, Rhys
Cooper, Ashley
Ness, Andy
Leary, Sam
author_sort Horne, Elsie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Since the early 2000s, a number of publications in the medical literature have highlighted inadequacies in the design, conduct and reporting of pilot trials. This work led to two notable publications in 2016: a conceptual framework for defining feasibility studies and an extension to the CONSORT 2010 statement to include pilot trials. It was hoped that these publications would educate researchers, leading to better use of pilot trials and thus more rigorously planned and informed randomised controlled trials. The aim of the present work is to evaluate the impact of these publications in the field of physical activity by reviewing the literature pre- and post-2016. This first article presents the pre-2016 review of the reporting and the current editorial policy applied to pilot trials published in physical activity journals. METHODS: Fourteen physical activity journals were screened for pilot and feasibility studies published between 2012 and 2015. The CONSORT 2010 extension to pilot and feasibility studies was used as a framework to assess the reporting quality of the studies. Editors of the eligible physical activity journals were canvassed regarding their editorial policy for pilot and feasibility studies. RESULTS: Thirty-one articles across five journals met the eligibility criteria. These articles fell into three distinct categories: trials that were carried out in preparation for a future definitive trial (23%), trials that evaluated the feasibility of a novel intervention but did not explicitly address a future definitive trial (23%) and trials that did not have any clear objectives to address feasibility (55%). Editors from all five journals stated that they generally do not accept pilot trials, and none gave reference to the CONSORT 2010 extension as a guideline for submissions. CONCLUSION: The result that over half of the studies did not have feasibility objectives is in line with previous research findings, demonstrating that these findings are not being disseminated effectively to researchers in the field of physical activity. The low standard of reporting across most reviewed articles and the neglect of the extended CONSORT 2010 statement by the journal editors highlight the need to actively disseminate these guidelines to ensure their impact. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40814-018-0317-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-60487482018-07-19 Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy Horne, Elsie Lancaster, Gillian A. Matson, Rhys Cooper, Ashley Ness, Andy Leary, Sam Pilot Feasibility Stud Review BACKGROUND: Since the early 2000s, a number of publications in the medical literature have highlighted inadequacies in the design, conduct and reporting of pilot trials. This work led to two notable publications in 2016: a conceptual framework for defining feasibility studies and an extension to the CONSORT 2010 statement to include pilot trials. It was hoped that these publications would educate researchers, leading to better use of pilot trials and thus more rigorously planned and informed randomised controlled trials. The aim of the present work is to evaluate the impact of these publications in the field of physical activity by reviewing the literature pre- and post-2016. This first article presents the pre-2016 review of the reporting and the current editorial policy applied to pilot trials published in physical activity journals. METHODS: Fourteen physical activity journals were screened for pilot and feasibility studies published between 2012 and 2015. The CONSORT 2010 extension to pilot and feasibility studies was used as a framework to assess the reporting quality of the studies. Editors of the eligible physical activity journals were canvassed regarding their editorial policy for pilot and feasibility studies. RESULTS: Thirty-one articles across five journals met the eligibility criteria. These articles fell into three distinct categories: trials that were carried out in preparation for a future definitive trial (23%), trials that evaluated the feasibility of a novel intervention but did not explicitly address a future definitive trial (23%) and trials that did not have any clear objectives to address feasibility (55%). Editors from all five journals stated that they generally do not accept pilot trials, and none gave reference to the CONSORT 2010 extension as a guideline for submissions. CONCLUSION: The result that over half of the studies did not have feasibility objectives is in line with previous research findings, demonstrating that these findings are not being disseminated effectively to researchers in the field of physical activity. The low standard of reporting across most reviewed articles and the neglect of the extended CONSORT 2010 statement by the journal editors highlight the need to actively disseminate these guidelines to ensure their impact. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40814-018-0317-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-07-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6048748/ /pubmed/30026962 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40814-018-0317-1 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Review
Horne, Elsie
Lancaster, Gillian A.
Matson, Rhys
Cooper, Ashley
Ness, Andy
Leary, Sam
Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy
title Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy
title_full Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy
title_fullStr Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy
title_full_unstemmed Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy
title_short Pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy
title_sort pilot trials in physical activity journals: a review of reporting and editorial policy
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6048748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30026962
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40814-018-0317-1
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