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CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE Are the most comprehensive databases. Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has the most complete indexing. Study was an audit of bibliographic databases for reports of randomized controlled trials.
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CENTRAL PEDro PubMed and EMBASE Are the Most Comprehensive Databases Indexing Randomized Controlled Trials of Physical Therapy Interventions
CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE Are the most comprehensive databases. Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has the most complete indexing. Study was an audit of bibliographic databases for reports of randomized controlled trials.
CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE Are the most comprehensive databases. Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has the most complete indexing. Study was an audit of bibliographic databases for reports of randomized controlled trials.
Databases Indexing Randomized Controlled Trials of Physical Therapy Interventions Zoe A. Michaleff, Leonardo O.P. Costa, Anne M. Moseley, Christopher G. Maher, Mark R. Elkins, Robert D. Herbert, Catherine Sherrington Background. Many bibliographic databases index research studies evaluating the effects of health care interventions. One study has concluded that the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has the most complete indexing of reports of randomized controlled trials of physical therapy interventions, but the design of that study may have exaggerated estimates of the completeness of indexing by PEDro. Objective. The purpose of this study was to compare the completeness of index- ing of reports of randomized controlled trials of physical therapy interventions by 8 bibliographic databases. Design. This study was an audit of bibliographic databases. Methods. Prespecied criteria were used to identify 400 reports of randomized controlled trials from the reference lists of systematic reviews published in 2008 that evaluated physical therapy interventions. Eight databases (AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, Hooked on Evidence, PEDro, PsycINFO, and PubMed) were searched for each trial report. The proportion of the 400 trial reports indexed by each database was calculated. Results. The proportions of the 400 trial reports indexed by the databases were as follows: CENTRAL, 95%; PEDro, 92%; PubMed, 89%; EMBASE, 88%; CINAHL, 53%; AMED, 50%; Hooked on Evidence, 45%; and PsycINFO, 6%. Almost all of the trial reports (99%) were found in at least 1 database, and 88% were indexed by 4 or more databases. Four trial reports were uniquely indexed by a single database only (2 in CENTRAL and 1 each in PEDro and PubMed). Limitations. The results are only applicable to searching for English-language published reports of randomized controlled trials evaluating physical therapy interventions. Conclusions. The 4 most comprehensive databases of trial reports evaluating physical therapy interventions were CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE. Clini- cians seeking quick answers to clinical questions could search any of these databases knowing that all are reasonably comprehensive. PEDro, unlike the other 3 most complete databases, is specic to physical therapy, so studies not relevant to physical therapy are less likely to be retrieved. Researchers could use CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE in combination to conduct exhaustive searches for randomized trials in physical therapy. Z.A. Michaleff, PT, is a PhD candi- date, The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Rd, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia. Address all corre- spondence to Ms Michaleff at: zmichaleff@georgeinstitute.org.au. L.O.P. Costa, PT, PhD, is Associate Professor, Universidade Cidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil. A.M. Moseley, PhD, is Senior Research Fellow, The George Insti- tute for Global Health, The Univer- sity of Sydney. C.G. Maher, PT, PhD, is Director, Musculoskeletal Division, The George Institute for Global Health, and Professor, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney. M.R. Elkins, PT, PhD, is Research Physiotherapist, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia. R.D. Herbert, PhD, is Senior Research Fellow, Musculoskeletal Division, The George Institute for Global Health, and Associate Pro- fessor, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney. C. Sherrington, PhD, is Senior Research Fellow, The George Insti- tute for Global Health, The Univer- sity of Sydney. [Michaleff ZA, Costa LOP, Moseley AM, et al. CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE are the most comprehensive databases indexing randomized controlled trials of physical therapy interventions. Phys Ther. 2011;91:190197.] 2011 American Physical Therapy Association Research Report Post a Rapid Response to this article at: ptjournal.apta.org 190 f Physical Therapy Volume 91 Number 2 February 2011 E vidence-based practice involves the integration of the best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values to make optimal health care decisions for individual patients. 1 An evidence- based approach requires clinicians and researchers to be able to access the best evidence available quickly and easily. 2 Advances in electronic technologies (eg, the Internet) and electronic bibliographic databases have facilitated access to information and made searching, locating, and retrieving evidence easier and less time-consuming for health care pro- fessionals, including physical thera- pists. 3 However, both practitioners asking clinical questions and researchers conducting exhaustive searches for systematic reviews experience several challenges when searching databases. Challenges encountered by clinicians can include limited access because of high subscription costs, rudimentary searching skills (so that searching may retrieve a large proportion of irrelevant literature and not identify key evidence), and time con- straints. 35 These issues can result in full text on the net bias as clini- cians preferentially retrieve articles that are easily accessed. 6 Research- ers, however, need to conduct com- prehensive and unbiased searches to identify all studies relevant to a spe- cic topic. 6,7 Conducting such searches often requires both knowl- edge of and access to multiple databases. 8 Many electronic databases index research about the effects of health care interventions. The databases that are most commonly used in sys- tematic reviews of physical therapy interventions are the Medical Litera- ture Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), Cochrane Library (including Cochrane Review Group Registers and Cochrane Cen- tral Register of Controlled Trials [CENTRAL]), Clinical Index of Nurs- ing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsycINFO, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED), and Physiotherapy Evi- dence Database (PEDro). 9 The data- bases differ with respect to primary professional target audience (eg, physicians, nurses, psychologists, physical therapists), journals indexed, and types of articles indexed (eg, all research articles or just randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews). 4 Variations in indexing mean that a clinician may have more success in retrieving rel- evant literature by searching a spe- cic database that comprehensively indexes particular types of research from the clinicians eld. Alterna- tively, a researcher may be able to perform exhaustive searches with fewer but more comprehensive databases. Moseley et al 4 recently compared 8 bibliographic databases (AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, Hooked on Evidence, PEDro, PsycINFO, and PubMed) for completeness of index- ing of reports of randomized con- trolled trials of physical therapy inter- ventions and concluded that PEDro (99%) and CENTRAL (98%) provided the most complete coverage. The authors acknowledged that their study may have obtained optimistic esti- mates of the completeness of PEDro and CENTRAL because both databases systematically extract reports of ran- domized controlled trials that are included in Cochrane systematic reviews 10,11 and because the pool of trials used to compare the 8 databases also was obtained from the reference lists of Cochrane reviews. In the present study, we sought to address this potential limitation by comparing the databases using an independent pool of trials generated from system- atic reviews evaluating physical ther- apy interventions published in 2008 and indexed by PubMed. This strategy reduces the risk of selection bias because the link between the 2 data- bases (PEDro and CENTRAL) and PubMed is not as direct as the link with Cochrane reviews. Specically, our objective was to compare the completeness of index- ing of reports of randomized con- trolled trials of physical therapy interventions by 8 bibliographic databases (AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, Hooked on Evidence, PEDro, PsycINFO, and PubMed) using an independent pool of trials. Method Dening the Pool of Trials A PubMed search was conducted to identify all systematic reviews that evaluated physical therapy interven- tions and were published in 2008. The PubMed Clinical Queries nd systematic reviews function was applied to the search strategy: (Physical Therapy Modalities [Mesh] OR Physical Therapy (Spe- cialty)[Mesh]) AND systematic[sb] AND(2008/01/01[PDAT]:2008/12/ 31[PDAT]). Systematic reviews were considered to be relevant if they eval- uated the effects of a physical therapy intervention 12 and were published in 2008. The title and, if necessary, the abstract and full text were screened independently by 2 authors with a background in physical therapy (Z.A.M. and L.O.P.C.) to identify rele- vant reviews. The same 2 authors also coded each relevant review for area of Available With This Article at ptjournal.apta.org eAppendix: Systematic Reviews Used to Generate the Pool of 400 Reports of Randomized Controlled Trials Audio Abstracts Podcast This article was published ahead of print on December 9, 2010, at ptjournal.apta.org. Comprehensive Databases for Physical Therapy Trials February 2011 Volume 91 Number 2 Physical Therapy f 191 physical therapy (cardiothoracics, continence and womens health, ergo- nomics and occupational health, ger- ontology, musculoskeletal, neurology, orthopedics, pediatrics, and sports). Any disagreements were resolved by discussion. The eligible systematic reviews were sorted in random order by use of the random number function in Microsoft Ofce Excel.* The refer- ence lists of these systematic reviews were extracted until a pool of 400 unique reports of randomized con- trolled trials was obtained. This pro- cess ensured that a random sample of systematic reviews would be used to generate the pool of trial reports, regardless of how many reviews were required to generate a pool of 400 trial reports. The reports of randomized con- trolled trials were eligible for inclu- sion if they met the following 4 cri- teria: the article was a full report published in a peer-reviewed jour- nal, at least 2 interventions were compared (1 of these interventions could be a no-treatment control or a sham treatment), at least 1 of the interventions being evaluated was part of physical therapist practice, 12 and the study involved random allo- cation or intended-to-be-random allo- cation of participants to interven- tions. These criteria were applied to focus the analysis on full reports of randomized controlled trials evaluat- ing physical therapy interventions. Searching the Bibliographic Databases Eight bibliographic databases were searched to determine if they indexed each of the 400 unique reports of ran- domized controlled trials. The data- bases searched were AMED via OVID (http://www.ovid.com via The Uni- versity of Sydney subscription), CEN- TRAL via the Wiley InterScience portal (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com), CINAHL via EBSCOhost (http:// www.ebscohost.comvia The University of Sydney subscription), EMBASE via the subscription version (http://www. embase.com/), Hooked on Evidence (http://www.hookedonevidence.org), PEDro (http://www.pedro.org.au), PsycINFO via OVID, and PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed). Seven of these databases were selected because they have been shown to be the most commonly used for systematic reviews of physical ther- apy interventions. 9 HookedonEvidence also was searched because it is an evi- dence resource developed specically for physical therapists. These databases represent both subscription-only and open-access databases and both generic and physical therapyspecic databases. Two authors (Z.A.M. and A.M.M.) per- formed all searches using combinations of author names, words in the title, jour- nal names, volume numbers, and page numbers. If a report could not be located in a database, the search was repeated independently by another author (L.O.P.C.). All searches were per- formed between December 14, 2009, and December 20, 2009. The total num- ber of entries each database was recorded on the day on which the search was completed. Analyses For each database, the number of trial reports that could be identied from the pool of 400 reports was recorded. Condence intervals for the proportions were computed with the Wilson score method. 13 The number of trial reports indexed uniquely by each database and the number of trial reports indexed by 2 or more databases also were deter- mined. This step involved identifying the combination of databases index- ing each trial report and determining the number of times each combina- tion occurred. Role of the Funding Source The study team designed, con- ducted, and reported this trial inde- pendent of the sources of funding. * Microsoft Corp, One Microsoft Way, Red- mond, WA 98052-6399. 356 systematic reviews evaluating physical therapy interventions identified in the PubMed search 132 relevant systematic reviews 580 references extracted from the first 39 systematic reviews 400 full-text randomized controlled trials evaluating physical therapy interventions included in analysis 224 ineligible systematic reviews Reasons for exclusion: - Not published in 2008 (n=25) - Did not evaluate physical therapy intervention (n=199) 180 ineligible trials: - Random allocation not used (n=72) - Physical therapy intervention not evaluated (n=50) - Study population not treated in physical therapy practice (n=23) - Duplicates (n=22) - Referencing error/not full published article (n=13) Figure. Selection of the pool of trials. Comprehensive Databases for Physical Therapy Trials 192 f Physical Therapy Volume 91 Number 2 February 2011 Results Pool of Trials The PubMed search retrieved 356 systematic reviews (Figure). Of these, 132 systematic reviews were relevant because they evaluated the effects of a physical therapy inter- vention and were published in 2008. The pool of 400 unique reports of randomized controlled trials was compiled fromthe rst 39 systematic reviews from the randomly sorted list of reviews (listed in the eAppen- dix; available at ptjournal.apta.org). These reviews evaluated physical therapy interventions in 8 of the 9 areas of physical therapy (there were no reviews for ergonomics and occupational health) (Tab. 1). The majority of the reviews evaluated physical therapy interventions for musculoskeletal conditions (10 of the 39 reviews). Seven of the reviews were published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. All but 2 of the reviews were published in English. The pool of 400 unique reports of randomized controlled trials was derived from the 580 references included in the 39 systematic reviews. A total of 180 references were excluded because they did not meet the eligibility criteria for reports of randomized controlled tri- als. Specically, 72 of these refer- ences were excluded because they were reports of other research meth- ods (eg, case control study) or did not contain between-group analyses (eg, protocols and secondary analy- ses) (Figure). The 400 eligible trial reports were published between 1971 and 2008, and the majority were published in English (384 reports). The list of trial reports included in the analysis is available from the corresponding author. Completeness of Indexing by the Databases Four databases indexed large propor- tions of the pool of reports of ran- domized controlled trials: CENTRAL (95%), PEDro (92%), PubMed (89%), and EMBASE (88%). A further 3 data- bases indexed approximately half of the pool of trial reports: CINAHL (53%), AMED (50%), and Hooked on Evidence (45%). PsycINFO indexed a small proportion (6%). Table 2 shows the quantity of trial reports indexed by each of the bibliographic databases, as well as the total num- ber of entries for each database. PubMed (19,379,156 articles indexed) and EMBASE (13,402,910 articles) were the largest databases (Tab. 2). Of the physical therapy specic databases, PEDro (15,678 articles) was larger than Hooked on Evidence (5,517 articles). Almost all of the reports of random- ized controlled trials in the pool of trials (394/400, 99%) were found in at least 1 of the databases surveyed, and 88% of the trial reports were indexed by 4 or more databases (Tab. 3). The 6 trial reports that were not indexed by any database were all published in Chinese-language jour- nals: Chinese Journal of Athletic Medicine, Traditional Chinese Med- Table 1. Number of Systematic Reviews Included in This Study by Area of Physical Therapy Area of Physical Therapy No. of Systematic Reviews Musculoskeletal 10 Cardiothoracics 5 Gerontology and musculoskeletal 5 Neurology 4 Pediatrics 4 Cardiothoracics and gerontology 2 Sports and orthopedics 2 Continence and womens health 2 Sports 2 Gerontology 1 Gerontology and neurology 1 Orthopedics 1 Ergonomics and occupational health 0 Total 39 Table 2. Reports of Randomized Controlled Trials From a Pool of 400 Trials Indexed by Various Databases and Total Number of Entries for Each Database a Database No. (%) of Trials Indexed 95% Condence Interval of Percentage Total Number of Entries CENTRAL 378 (95) 9296 608,405 PEDro 366 (92) 8894 15,678 PubMed 356 (89) 8692 19,379,156 EMBASE 352 (88) 8491 13,402,910 CINAHL 210 (53) 4857 2,168,147 AMED 200 (50) 4555 238,165 Hooked on Evidence 181 (45) 4050 5,517 PsycINFO 22 (6) 48 2,914,911 a The data are ranked according to the completeness of indexing. CENTRALCochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PEDroPhysiotherapy Evidence Database, EMBASEExcerpta Medica Database, CINAHLClinical Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, AMEDAllied and Complementary Medicine Database. Comprehensive Databases for Physical Therapy Trials February 2011 Volume 91 Number 2 Physical Therapy f 193 icine Research, Chinese Journal of Modern Developments in Tradi- tional Medicine (Zhong Xi Yi Jie He Za Zhi), Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation (Zhong Guo Kang Fu Yi Xue Za Zhi), Journal of Bei- jing Sport University (Beijing Ti Yu Da Xue Xue Bao), and Chinese Journal of Sports Medicine (Zhong- guo Yun Dong Yi Xue Za Zhi). Four trial reports were uniquely indexed by 1 database only: 2 in CENTRAL, 1 in PEDro, and 1 in PubMed (Tab. 3). Four trial reports were uniquely indexed by a single database only (2 in CENTRAL and 1 each in PEDro and PubMed). Larger proportions of trial reports were retrieved when combinations of the 4 most complete databases (CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE) were searched. Searching any pair of these 4 databases retrieved 96% or more of the pool of reports of randomized controlled trials. The combination of CENTRAL and PEDro indexed the largest pro- portion of the pool of trial reports (391/400), whereas the smallest pro- portion of trial reports was found when the combination of EMBASE and PubMed was used (383/400). The most efcient and exhaustive search (ie, the minimum number of databases required to be searched to retrieve the maximum number of trial reports) involved searching CENTRAL and PEDro with the addi- tion of either EMBASE or PubMed, which retrieved 393 of 400 or 394 of 400 trial reports, respectively. Discussion In the present study, we evaluated the completeness of indexing of reports of randomized controlled tri- als of physical therapy interventions by 8 bibliographic databases. CEN- TRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE were identied as the most compre- hensive databases indexing this inde- pendent pool of randomized con- trolled trials. CENTRAL, PEDro, and PubMed all indexed trials that appeared in that single database only. Searching CENTRAL and PEDro in combination with either EMBASE or PubMed retrieved the largest num- ber of trial reports. The results of the present study were similar to those of an earlier study by Moseley et al 4 ; they also identied CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE as the 4 most comprehen- sive databases indexing reports of tri- als of physical therapy interventions. However, to attempt to reduce the risk of selection bias, we used a dif- ferent method to generate the pool of reports of randomized controlled trials for evaluating the complete- ness of indexing by the various data- bases. Moseley et al 4 used the trials included in 30 Cochrane reviews of physical therapy interventions, a strategy that may have favored CEN- TRAL and PEDro because both of those databases systematically extract trials directly from Cochrane reviews. 10,11 In contrast, we included trials from the reference lists of a random sam- ple of systematic reviews of physical therapy interventions published in 2008 and indexed by PubMed, a strategy that decreased the link between the pool of trials and the databases under investigation. Although our strategy reduced the risk of selection bias, we acknowl- edge that several other sources of bias may affect the indexing of trials by bibliographic databases. These include language bias (trials with sta- tistically signicant results are more likely to be published in English- language journals), 14 publication bias (research with statistically signif- icant results is more likely to be sub- mitted and published than research with nonsignicant ndings), 15,16 and database bias (journals pub- lished in English in developed coun- tries are more likely to be indexed by electronic databases than those in developing countries; for example, of the 46 physical therapy journals listed on the World Confederation of Physical Therapy Web site, 17,18 MEDLINE indexes 15 of the 31 English-language journals but none of the 15 nonEnglish-language jour- nals). The inuences of these poten- tial sources of bias are difcult to quantify. Because clinicians and researchers have different needs, they may choose to use different databases. For clinicians, a major consideration may be the accessibility of the data- base (eg, open access or subscrip- tion only). Of the 4 most complete databases (CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE), 3 (CENTRAL, 19 PubMed, 20 and PEDro 21 ) are freely available. In the present study, we evaluated the advanced search mode of EMBASE, which is available only by subscription. The simple search mode of EMBASE is freely available but was not evaluated in the present study. PEDro is unique (compared with the other 3 most comprehensive data- bases) because it is a physical therapy specic database that indexes only randomized controlled trials, system- atic reviews, and clinical practice guidelines. Therefore, PEDro may be a good rst choice for clinicians search- ing for reports of randomized con- trolled trials of physical therapy interventions. Researchers have a greater need to conduct comprehensive and unbi- ased searches. Consequently, it often is necessary for researchers to search multiple databases. The 39 system- atic reviews used in the present study searched an average of 6 data- bases (range319) to identify the studies included in their analyses. In the present study, we concluded that researchers can conduct an exhaustive literature search for trials evaluating physical therapy interven- tions using as few as 3 databases (CENTRAL and PEDro in combina- Comprehensive Databases for Physical Therapy Trials 194 f Physical Therapy Volume 91 Number 2 February 2011 Table 3. Bibliographic Databases Indexing Each Report of a Randomized Controlled Trial From the Pool of 400 Trials a No. of Databases Indexing the Trial No. (%) of Trials Indexed No. of Trials for Each Combination of Databases AMED CENTRAL CINAHL EMBASE Hooked on Evidence PEDro PsycINFO PubMed 0 6 (1.5) 0 1 4 (1.0) 2 1 1 2 5 (1.3) 3 2 3 32 (8.0) 9 6 5 3 2 2 2 2 1 4 78 (19.5) 51 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 5 97 (24.2) 28 25 19 8 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 (Continued) Comprehensive Databases for Physical Therapy Trials February 2011 Volume 91 Number 2 Physical Therapy f 195 tion with either EMBASE or PubMed). Six reports could not be located by the 8 databases used in the present study. All were published in Chinese-language jour- nals and evaluated the effects of tai chi. These may have been found by searching, in addition, a Chinese- languagespecic database such as China Academic Journal Full-Text Database (http://china.eastview.com/ kns50/Navigator.aspx?ID1). In gen- eral, it may be necessary to search par- ticular databases, in addition to CEN- TRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE, if an intervention is specic to a cer- tain culture or is outside mainstream clinical practice. The limitations of the present study include the degree to which the results can be generalized to searches for randomized controlled trials published in languages other than English. Six trial reports could not be found despite the use of var- ious combinations of author names, article titles, journal names, volumes, issues, and years of publication. This result may indicate that these trial reports were not indexed by these databases, or it may have been due to indexing errors. Furthermore, the 8 databases scrutinized in the present study were not evaluated for their ability to identify gray literature (ie, conference proceedings, published abstracts, theses, and books), which may be important sources of trial reports for systematic reviewers. Finally, these databases were not evaluated for the sensitivity (ie, the proportion of relevant references in the database that are retrieved 22(p19) ) or the specicity (ie, the proportion of retrieved references that are rele- vant to the search 22(p19) ) of reports retrieved with key word searches alone. In conclusion, CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE are the most complete bibliographic databases for reports of randomized controlled tri- als evaluating physical therapy inter- ventions. Researchers could use these databases in combination to conduct exhaustive searches for reports of trials of physical therapy interventions. We recommend a search of CENTRAL and PEDro in combination with either EMBASE or PubMed. Clinicians seeking rapid answers to questions about the effects of physical therapy interven- tions could use any 1 of the 4 most comprehensive databases (3 of which are freely available). Dr Costa, Dr Moseley, Dr Maher, Dr Elkins, and Dr Sherrington provided concept/idea/ research design. Ms Michaleff, Dr Costa, Dr Moseley, Dr Maher, Dr Herbert, and Dr Sher- rington provided writing. Ms Michaleff, Dr Costa, and Dr Moseley provided data collec- Table 3. Continued No. of Databases Indexing the Trial No. (%) of Trials Indexed No. of Trials for Each Combination of Databases AMED CENTRAL CINAHL EMBASE Hooked on Evidence PEDro PsycINFO PubMed 6 91 (22.7) 29 28 23 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 7 84 (21.0) 77 5 1 1 8 3 (0.8) 3 Total 400 (100) a AMEDAllied and Complementary Medicine Database, CENTRALCochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, CINAHLClinical Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, EMBASEExcerpta Medica Database, PEDroPhysiotherapy Evidence Database. Comprehensive Databases for Physical Therapy Trials 196 f Physical Therapy Volume 91 Number 2 February 2011 tion. Ms Michaleff, Dr Costa, Dr Moseley, and Dr Herbert provided data analysis. Dr Maher provided project management. Dr Moseley, Dr Maher, and Dr Sherrington pro- vided fund procurement. Dr Maher provided facilities/equipment. Ms Michaleff, Dr Costa, Dr Moseley, Dr Maher, Dr Elkins, and Dr Sherrington provided consultation (includ- ing reviewof manuscript before submission). Some of the authors are developers of the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro). PEDro is funded by the Motor Accidents Authority of New South Wales; the Motor Accidents Insurance Commission (Queens- land, Victoria, Australia); the Victorian Trans- port Accidents Commission (Victoria, Austra- lia); and physical therapy associations in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Fin- land, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Ms Michaleff holds a postgraduate award from the Australian government. 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