The new rehabilitation definition for research purposes could improve rehabilitation description in Cochrane Systematic Reviews

Introduction

In 2022, Cochrane Rehabilitation developed a new definition of rehabilitation for research purposes with 80 global stakeholders, aiming to support and improve the production and reporting of primary and evidence-synthesis rehabilitation studies.

Objective

• 1.

  To compare how Cochrane Systematic Review (CSR) authors describe rehabilitation interventions against criteria derived from the new rehabilitation definition.

• 2.

  To assess limitations or gaps in the rehabilitation definition.

Methods

We analysed a sample of 124 randomly selected CSRs tagged in the Cochrane Rehabilitation database. We converted the Cochrane Rehabilitation definition for research purposes into a set of 13 criteria grouped according to the four PICO elements and searched for the corresponding key elements in each CSR. We verified if and where in the review these elements were present. Two reviewers rated each CSR, resolving disagreements with a third author when needed. We analysed the findings using descriptive statistics.

Results

Eight (6.5%) of 124 CSRs met all rehabilitation definition criteria. These were CSRs that investigated the effects of complex rehabilitation interventions. Three (2.4%) CSRs did not meet any PICO elements. Overall, the “Intervention-General” element and disability criterion had the highest prevalence of absent and unclear reporting, while the “Intervention-Specific” and “Outcome” elements were most frequently reported, albeit not in the “Description of the intervention” section of the review.

Discussion

This study showed that the key elements of the new rehabilitation definition are almost always reported in publications identified as rehabilitation reviews but not always consistently or clearly. The disability criterion was frequently unreported, given that the main aim of rehabilitation is reducing disability. Also, the main elements of rehabilitation were frequently not reported. We did not find important gaps in the new definition. All elements of the new definition should be considered when writing review protocols and designing strategies and tools on rehabilitation topics.