BACKGROUND To assess the effectiveness of physical therapy (PT) interventions on functioning in children with cerebral palsy (CP). METHODS A search was made in Medline, Cinahl, PEDro and the Cochrane library for the period 1990 to February 2007. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on PT interventions in children with diagnosed CP were included. Two reviewers independently assessed the me...

BACKGROUND There is a growing recognition for the need to expand our evidence base for the clinical effectiveness of diagnostic tests. Many international bodies are calling for diagnostic randomized controlled trials to provide the most rigorous evidence of impact to patient health. Although these so-called test-treatment RCTs are very challenging to undertake due to their methodological comple...

BACKGROUND Several systematic reviews have been published about the relationship of the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and risk of suicidal ideation or behavior but there has been no formal assessment of the quality of these reports. AIM Assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews about the relationship of SSRI use and suicidal ideation and behavior; and pr...

The quality of life (QL) concept has led to extensive scientific research and has been increasingly used by health care professionals treating a wide range of diseases. This paper addresses the historical use of the concept and specific issues linked to conceptual and methodological aspects of the QL construct within the health care context. Reviewing the literature, two aspects stand out: subj...

CONTEXT Resistance training may be beneficial for patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). OBJECTIVE To systematically review the methodological quality of, and summarise the effects of, moderate-to-high intensity resistance training in CHF. DATA SOURCES Medline/PubMed, Science Citation Index Expanded, SSCI and A&HCI. STUDY SELECTION English language (non-)randomised controlled trials. ...

OBJECTIVE To assess methodological quality of the randomized controlled trials of physiotherapy in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting in the intensive care unit. METHODS The studies published until May 2015, in MEDLINE, Cochrane and PEDro were included. The primary outcome extracted was proper filling of the Cochrane Collaboration's tool's items and the secondary was suitabil...

BACKGROUND The internet is increasingly being used to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Knowledge of the types of interventions evaluated and the methodological quality of these trials could inform decisions about whether to conduct future trials using conventional methods, fully online or a mixture of the two. OBJECTIVE To identify and describe the scope of internet-based RCTs for...

This article assesses whether there are methodological problems with child outcome measures that may contribute to the small associations between child care quality and child outcomes found in the literature. Outcome measures used in 65 studies of child care quality published between 1979 and December 2005 were examined, taking the previous review by Vandell and Wolfe (2000) as the starting poi...

BACKGROUND Teaching and assessment of communication skills have become essential in medical education. The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) has been found as an appropriate means to assess communication skills within medical education. Studies have demonstrated the importance of a valid assessment of medical students' communication skills. Yet, the validity of the performance sc...

The author explores the relationship between rationality, ethics, and space. He argues that the contemporary ethical project involves a derationalisation of ethics through a recorporealisation of space. There is a move away from the abstract space of liberal ^ individualist notions of justice to more enclosed and local spaces of communitarian loyalties and intersubjective communication. Postmod...