Assessing the completeness of reporting of exercise-based interventions in cardiovascular trials

Abstract

Study Objective: In cardiology, the reporting of interventions is insufficiently detailed to elicit replication. Specifically for cardiovascular rehabilitation (CVR) trials, the quality of the description of its exercise-based interventions (EBI) is poorly known. Our primary objective is to estimate the adherence of EBI of CVR trials to TIDieR reporting guideline. Secondarily, we tested whether the CVR setting would be associated with a better reporting, also exploring whether transparency and methodological characteristics could be related. Design and Setting: This cross-sectional study analyzed 96 trials with EBI published within CVR literature. For our primary objective, TIDieR reporting guideline was accounted as a reference to assess overall adherence of eligible RCTs. For our secondary objectives we used generalized estimating equations to point out (a) if intervention setting (eg, home-based vs. centre-based) was associated with intervention reporting, and (b) if trials transparency and methodological characteristics would be associated with intervention reporting. Results: On average, arms adequately reported 4.8/12 (SD=2.4) TIDieR items. 65.07% of our EBI arms failed to adequately report ≥ 6 TIDieR items. Three of 146 (2.05%) arms adhered to all 12 TIDieR items. Additionally, intervention setting was not associated with a better description. Conclusions: We concluded that EBIs in CVR lack to report fundamental aspects of the interventions to be replicated by third parties based on their reports.