The latest research via email 

When the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) is updated each month, new research is emailed to physiotherapists via PEDro’s Evidence in your inbox service.

The service provides tailored feeds of the latest guidelines, reviews and trials in specific areas of physiotherapy, encompassing ten subdisciplines and five specific clinical conditions—cardiothoracics, continence and women’s health, ergonomics and occupational health, gerontology, musculoskeletal, neurology, oncology, orthopaedics, paediatrics, sports, cerebral palsy, chronic pain, chronic respiratory disease, neurotrauma and whiplash.

The new records arrive as a list of hyperlinked article titles, with guidelines and systematic reviews listed first, followed by trials in descending order of trial quality.

Each hyperlink goes to a detailed search results page for the relevant article on the PEDro website, which includes citation details, the abstract and links to a free version of the full text for the majority of papers.

Click here to sign up.

PEDro journal clubs

The PEDro World-Wide Journal Club is designed to encourage the global physiotherapy community to read trials, reviews and guidelines that have important implications for clinical practice.

The idea is for physiotherapists to use resources provided by PEDro as the basis for running a local journal club with their peers.

PEDro resources for each club include a research article that addresses an important evidence–practice gap, a video summary of the article, a panel discussion about the article that explores applying the results in practice and links to other resources to support ongoing discussion and implementation.

Currently there are eight journal clubs on the PEDro website.

The first six cover constraint-induced movement therapy after stroke, exercise for falls prevention in community dwelling older people, exercise for rotator cuff-related shoulder pain, advanced telehealth technology to deliver exercise therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, decreasing frailty in older people and exercise for injury prevention in football (soccer).

These have recently been supplemented by two smaller journal clubs focusing on research topics—understanding comparisons in trials and understanding blinding in trials—with more to follow soon.

The smaller journal clubs consider the importance of these aspects of research from the perspective of clinicians, researchers and editors.

Click here for more information.

PEDro on YouTube

In addition to tutorials and other resources on the website, PEDro now has a YouTube channel with 184 ‘how to’ videos available in up to 12 different languages.

For example, the most popular video to date, ‘How to ask a clinical question in PICO format’, demonstrates how to use the memory aid PICO (patient, intervention, comparator, outcome) to refine a clinical question and then identify high-quality clinical research to answer the question using PEDro.

This video is available in English, simplified Chinese characters, Portuguese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Tamil.

Click here to access the videos.

Online PEDro scale training

The PEDro scale training program is used to train PEDro raters but is also available to clinicians, researchers and others who would like to improve their skills at appraising the quality of randomised trials.

All aspects of the training are conducted online and can be completed at a participant’s own pace.

The training program provides a definition of each item on the PEDro scale and a detailed description to clarify any issues to do with applying the definition, along with relevant references, frequently asked questions, examples and practice papers.

It also includes video instruction, examples and opportunities to practise and obtain feedback.

When completing the training, participants have the option to take an accuracy test to confirm that they are judging items on the PEDro scale in a similar way to other raters.

A certificate will be issued to those who pass the accuracy test.

Click here to find out more.

A sibling database for diagnostic accuracy

The Diagnostic Test Accuracy database (DiTA) is designed to enable clinicians, researchers and patients to access information on the accuracy of diagnostic tests used by physiotherapists.

DiTA is built on the same platform as the PEDro database.

Unlike PEDro, which indexes evidence of the effects of physiotherapy interventions (randomised trials and systematic reviews), DiTA indexes evidence (primary studies and systematic reviews) of the accuracy of diagnostic tests relevant to physiotherapy.

Studies are included in DiTA if they measure the accuracy of an index test a physiotherapist would perform themselves (rather than one they would order).

In addition, studies are only included if they investigate both pathologies and patients that physiotherapists would normally assess in clinical practice.

At the time of writing, DiTA had 2395 records—most of the records are primary diagnostic test accuracy studies, while about 10 per cent are systematic reviews of such studies.

DiTA is freely accessible and also features the Evidence in your inbox service so physiotherapists can keep up to date with new research about the accuracy of diagnostic tests in the specific areas of their clinical practice.

Click here for more information.

>> Clinical Associate Professor Mark Elkins APAM is the scientific editor of Journal of Physiotherapy. Follow him on Twitter @JOP_Editor and follow Journal of Physiotherapy @JPhysiother

>> Geraldine Wallbank APAM is the Senior Project Officer at the Physiotherapy Evidence Database, based in the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health at the University of Sydney and Sydney Local Health District. Follow PEDro on Twitter @PEDro_database.