Reporting of randomized controlled trials in occupational therapy and speech therapy: Evaluation using an expansion of the CONSORT statement

Research in occupational therapy is necessary for the validation of therapeutic interventions. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) control against potentially confounding variables and provide validating evidence, if properly reported. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of reporting RCTs in occupational therapy and speech therapy by use of an expansion of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement. The Nelson Moberg-Norton Expanded CONSORT Instrument (NMNECI) was used to evaluate 15 occupational therapy RCTs and 15 speech therapy RCTs. After the principal investigator evaluated all 30 articles, a masked research assistant evaluated 16 randomly selected RCTs to test for inter-rater reliability. An intraclass correlation coefficient of .93 confirmed overall inter-rater agreement. On average, the 30 articles were consistent with 119.5 NMNECI sub-items (SD = 25.48) of the 212 possible sub-items. Occupational therapy RCTs (mean = 130.07, SD = 20.21) were more consistent with the CONSORT statement than speech therapy RCTs (mean = 108.93, SD = 26.40), t(28) = 2.46, p = .02. RCTs in occupational therapy and other allied health professions could benefit from using the CONSORT statement as a tool for reporting future research studies.