ArticleEuropean journal of physical and rehabilitation medicine2024
The influence of bias in randomized controlled trials on rehabilitation intervention effect estimates: what we have learned from meta-epidemiological studies.
Article in European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicine, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Registration and reporting characteristics of trials investigating exercise therapy following total knee arthroplasty: a systematic review.Acta orthopaedica · 2026Pooled it
- Interventions that prolong multidimensional healthspan in humans: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Pooled it
- Relative efficacy of prehabilitation interventions and their components: systematic review with network and component network meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Pooled it
- Trial
- Article
- Rehabilitation research in spinal muscular atrophy: a call to action.Journal of neuromuscular diseases · 2026Review
- Empowering lives of people with SCI: unlocking the transformative potential of the World Health Assembly's resolution on rehabilitation - the 2024 ISCoS lecture.Spinal cord · 2025Review
- Current and Future Challenges for Rehabilitation for Inflammatory Arthritis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This study aimed to synthesize evidence from studies that addressed the influence of bias domains in randomized controlled trials on rehabilitation intervention effect estimates and discuss how these findings can maximize the trustworthiness of an RCT in rehabilitation. We screened studies about the influence of bias on rehabilitation intervention effect estimates published until June 2023. The characteristics and results of the included studies were categorized based on methodological characteristics and summarized narratively. We included seven studies with data on 227,806 RCT participants. Our findings showed that rehabilitation intervention effect estimates are likely exaggerated in trials with inadequate/unclear sequence generation and allocation concealment when using continuous outcomes. The influence of blinding was inconsistent and different from the rest of medical science, as meta-epidemiological studies showed overestimation, underestimation, or neutral associations for different types of blinding on rehabilitation treatment effect estimates. Still, it showed a more consistent pattern when looking at patient-reported outcomes. The impact of attrition bias and intention to treat has been analyzed only in two studies with inconsistent results. The risk of reporting bias seems to be associated with overestimation of treatment effects. Bias domains can influence rehabilitation treatment effects in different directions. The evidence is mixed and inconclusive due to the poor methodological quality of RCTs and the limited number and quality of studies looking at the influence of bias and treatment effects in rehabilitation. Further studies about the influence of bias in RCTs on rehabilitation intervention effect estimates are needed.
Indexed as
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.