Applicability of Randomized Trials in Hand Surgery: Survey Study

Abstract

Objective To assess the applicability of randomized clinical trials and whether certain factors (surgeon experience/journal impact factor) influence their applicability.Methods In this survey study we used the Pubmed/Medline database to select 32 consecutive randomized clinical trials published between 2013 and 2015, involving hand surgery (high/low impact). These studies were independently assessed by 20 hand surgeons (with more or less than 10 years of practice) who answered 4 questions regarding their applicability. Agreement was assessed using Cohen’s kappa and comparison of proportions via chi-square statistics. P-value <5% constituted statistical significance.Results A total of 640 evaluations were produced, generating 2560 responses. A weak correlation was observed between less and more experienced respondents (kappa <0.2; range 0.119–0.179). Applicability between the least and most experienced respondents was similar (p = 0.424 and p = 0.70). Stratification by journal impact factor showed no greater propensity of applicability (p = 0.29) for any of the groups.Conclusions Low agreement was found between the respondents for the applicability of the randomized studies. Surgeon experience and journal impact do not seem to influence this decision. Level of Evidence II, Prospective comparative study.