Protocol for the development of a 'trustworthy' living systematic review and meta analyses of manual therapy interventions to treat neuromusculoskeletal impairments.

BACKGROUND

Preprocessed research resources are believed to be highly 'trustworthy' when translating research to clinical practice. However, the overall 'trustworthiness' is unknown if this evidence contains randomized clinical trials (RCTs) where prospective has not been/cannot be verified, has low confidence in estimated effects, and if they are not up to date.

OBJECTIVES

This protocol will be used to create a baseline benchmark for a series of trustworthy living systematic reviews (SRs) regarding manual therapy interventions.

METHODS

Data will originate from RCTs related to manual therapy neuromusculoskeletal interventions, indexed in 6 search engines in English from 1 January 2010, to the present. Two blinded reviewers will identify the RCTs and extract data using Covidence. The data will be synthesized based on consensus and analyzed using the Cochrane collaboration's Review Manager.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

It is expected that there will be a shortage of RCTs with at least a moderate confidence in estimated effects that will allow for strong practice recommendations.

DISCUSSION

Identifying evidence that can be translated into strong practice recommendations is essential to identify beneficial and harmful interventions, decrease practice variability, and identify neuromusculoskeletal manual therapy interventions that require further disciplined methodological focus.