Description of health-related rehabilitation service provision and delivery in randomized controlled trials: A topic review

Abstract

Objective: To determine how health-related rehabilitation services have been described in recently pub-lished randomized clinical trials, using the International Classification System for Service Organization in Health-Related Rehabilitation (ICSO-R 2.0) as a framework. Methods: Medline was searched for English--language randomized clinical trials (RCTs) published between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2018. RCTs were eligible if the primary goal was to provide rehabilitation services to targeted patient populations. Two authors independently screened and extracted data, and assessed the methodological quality of eligible trials. Descriptive analysis was used to compare service descriptions between eligible trials and the ICSO-R 2.0 framework (23 categories, 9 categories for provider, 14 categories for delivery). Results: Twenty-nine RCTs, with a wide range of organizational units and target groups, were included. The median number of categories reported in the provider dimension was 4 (range 3–5). The median number of categories reported in the service delivery dimension was 8 (range 6–12). None of the RCTs described all ICSO-R recommended categories. Conclusion: Descriptions of service organization in rehabilitation varied widely among recently published randomized clinical trials. Use of the framework for the classification of service organization and standardization of description of services is recommended in future RCTs, to facilitate better comparisons in service research across studies.