The Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meetings are scientific working meetings that serve the community by developing new tools and a better understanding of evidence production and synthesis.
The aims of the methodological meetings include:
• Challenge the status quo about evidence gathering and use;
• identify the methodological specificities of rehabilitation;
• educate the field;
• inform people outside the field.
The 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting (5CRMM) is a gathering of global experts in rehabilitation research methodology, focused on the theme "The Rehabilitation evidence-generation ecosystem: useful study designs". The goal is to improve the status quo in the use of scientific evidence in rehabilitation, providing a better understanding of its production and synthesis for practical purposes for sector operators. The objective is to generate proposals for the use of specific study designs and disseminate them through a Special Issue of a top-tier scientific journal. New tools will be discussed and preliminary articles will be developed, with group sessions for the production of original articles describing the evidence-generation ecosystem in rehabilitation. The ultimate goal is to stimulate advancements in understanding and producing robust scientific evidence in the field of rehabilitation.
- The 5CRMM will include the following topics:
- How to develop a research question that is answerable and logical
- Observational study designs
- Ways to improve the validity of observational studies
- Case reports, Case Series, and related experimental designs
- What we can learn from systematic reviews to improve the methodological quality of RCTs
- Qualitative studies
- Complex intervention studies
- Health services research studies
Below is a list of the papers published so far:
Negrini S, Kiekens C, Levack WM, Meyer-Feil T, Arienti C, Côté P; Participants in the 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting. Improving the quality of evidence production in rehabilitation. Results of the 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2024 Feb;60(1):130-134. doi: 10.23736/S1973-9087.23.08338-7. Epub 2023 Dec 19. PMID: 38112680.
Arienti C, Armijo-Olivo S, Ferriero G, Feys P, Hoogeboom T, Kiekens C, Lazzarini SG, Minozzi S, Negrini S, Oral A, Pollini E, Puljak L, Todhunter-Brown A, Walshe M; Participants in the 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting. The influence of bias in randomized controlled trials on rehabilitation intervention effect estimates: what we have learned from meta-epidemiological studies. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2024 Feb;60(1):135-144. doi: 10.23736/S1973-9087.23.08310-7. Epub 2023 Dec 12. PMID: 38088137.
Frontera WR, Cordani C, Décary S, DE Groote W, Del Furia MJ, Feys P, Jette AM, Kiekens C, Negrini S, Oral A, Resnik L, Røe C, Sabariego C; Participants in the 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting. Relevance and use of health policy, health systems and health services research for strengthening rehabilitation in real-life settings: methodological considerations. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2024 Feb;60(1):154-163. doi: 10.23736/S1973-9087.24.08386-2. Epub 2024 Jan 22. PMID: 38252128.
Côté P, Negrini S, Donzelli S, Kiekens C, Arienti C, Ceravolo MG, Gross DP, Battel I, Ferriero G, Lazzarini SG, Dan B, Shearer HM, Wong JJ; Participants in the 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting. Introduction to target trial emulation in rehabilitation: a systematic approach to emulate a randomized controlled trial using observational data. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2024 Feb;60(1):145-153. doi: 10.23736/S1973-9087.24.08435-1. PMID: 38420907. PubMed link
Levack WM, Gross DP, Martin RA, Every-Palmer S, Kiekens C, Cordani C, Negrini S; Participants in the 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting. Designing studies and reviews to produce informative, trustworthy evidence about complex interventions in rehabilitation: a narrative review and commentary. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2024 Jun 26. doi: 10.23736/S1973-9087.24.08459-4. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38922317. PubMed link
Machalicek W, Gross DP, Armijo-Olivo S, Ferriero G, Kiekens C, Martin R, Walshe M, Negrini S; 5th Cochrane Rehabilitation Methodological Meeting participants. The role of single case experimental designs in evidence creation in rehabilitation. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2024 Oct 7. doi: 10.23736/S1973-9087.24.08713-6. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39374052. PubMed link
Schmitz S, Meyer-Feil T. Randomized controlled trials as a source of evidence in rehabilitation: a critical analysis. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2024 Sep 18. doi: 10.23736/S1973-9087.24.08361-8. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39291951. PubMed link