Exercise interventions for low back pain are poorly reported: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the reporting quality of exercise interventions from clinical trials of low back pain (LBP).

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

We conducted a systematic review to assess the reporting quality of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that investigated the effectiveness of exercise interventions for patients with LBP. Five online databases and Clinical Trial Registries were searched (October 2018). We included RCTs that reported interventions for LBP, containing at least 50% exercise. The Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) and the Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template (CERT) reporting checklists were then used to assess quality of reporting.

RESULTS

582 trials were eligible for inclusion. Due to the large number of eligible studies, 100 studies were randomly selected for data extraction and coding with the TIDieR and CERT checklists. The random sample was representative of the 582 eligible trials. The overall completeness of reporting (median (IQR)) of TIDieR items was 59.2% (45.5%-72.7%) and CERT was 33.3% (22.2%-52.6%).

CONCLUSIONS

We found poor overall reporting with both checklists, which has not improved over time or since the introduction of the checklists. More dedicated work is required to address poor reporting of exercise interventions in clinical trials.