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A Rubric to Assess the Design and Intervention Quality of Randomized Controlled Trials in Health and Wellness
Sebastian Harenberg1, Gary A Sforzo1, Joel Edman1
1Department of Human Kinetics, St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada (SH); Exercise & Sport Sciences, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, USA (GAS); and Edman Wellness Services, Media, PA, USA (JE).
Objective:
To collect health and wellness coaching (HWC) literature related to treatment of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) for systematic assessment using a novel rubric.
Data Source:
Pubmed, CINAHL, and PsychInfo.
Study Inclusion And Exclusion:
Given 282 articles retrieved, only randomized and controlled trials meeting a HWC criteria-based definition were included; studies with intervention <4 months or <4 sessions were excluded.
Data Extraction:
Rubric assessment required details of two theoretical frameworks (i.e., study design and HWC intervention design) be extracted from each included paper.
Data Synthesis:
Data were derived from a 28-item rubric querying items such as sampling characteristics, statistical methods, coach characteristics, HWC strategy, and intervention fidelity.
Results:
29 articles were reviewed. Inter-rater rubric scoring yielded high intraclass correlation (r = .85). Rubric assessment of HWC literature resulted in moderate scores (56.7%), with study design scoring higher than intervention design; within intervention design, T2D studies scored higher than obesity.
Conclusions:
A novel research design rubric is presented and successfully applied to assess HWC research related to treatment of obesity and T2D. Most studies reported beneficial clinical findings; however, rubric results revealed moderate scores for study and intervention design. Implications for future HWC research are discussed.
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