Clinicians' perceptions of reporting methods for back pain trials: a qualitative study

Area of Science:

• Clinical research methodology
• Evidence-based practice
• Medical communication

Background:

• Reporting of clinical trial outcomes influences clinician perception of treatment effectiveness.
• Relative risk reporting is often interpreted more favorably than absolute risk reduction.
• Clarity and interpretability of various reporting methods for clinicians remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify the clearest and most interpretable reporting methods for back pain trial results among clinicians.
• To understand clinicians' preferences for trial result presentation and future reporting needs.

Main Methods:

• In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 clinicians (GPs, manual therapists, psychologists, rheumatologist, surgeons).
• Clinicians were purposively sampled based on discipline, sex, age, and practice setting.
• Participants reviewed hypothetical trial results presented using different reporting methods and expressed preferences.

Main Results:

• Clinicians reported trial reports are not written for their understanding.
• Familiarity existed with mean differences, proportion improved, and numbers needed to treat (NNT), but not standardized mean differences, odds ratios, or relative risks (RRs).
• Proportion improved, RR, and NNT were found most intuitively understandable; other methods could mislead.

Conclusions:

• Clinicians desire diverse reporting methods for easier interpretation and practice integration.
• Utilizing a variety of reporting formats enhances understanding of trial results in context.
• Authors of future back pain trials should adopt accessible data reporting formats for clinicians.