Have you ever wondered how reliable the results of clinical trials are?

We have! So much that we decided to investigate it! We are very happy to announce that another systematic review is about to commence within the EST-project. Within this review, we will investigate the implementation quality of previous clinical trials of interventions aimed to reduce stuttering among children and adolescents.

Individuals who persist with stuttering have a heightened risk of developing comorbidities such as social anxiety, depression and negative attitudes to communication (Guttormsen, Yaruss & Næss, 2018; Iverach, O’Brian, Jones, Block, Lincoln & Harrison, 2009). It is therefore essential that people who stutter have access to the best available interventions during childhood to minimize the likelihood of them developing persistent stuttering. In order to evaluate these interventions objectively and thoroughly, it is crucial that the outcomes reported in clinical trials are based on high quality implementation procedures. Our review will investigate the elements of implementation quality that have been reported in previous clinical trials and examine whether these elements have been considered when calculating effect sizes or interpreting the results. Similar reviews have been conducted in other research fields (see TIDieR, Hoffman et al., 2014 for an example) and in some instances checklists have been developed to guide future research. It is therefore an aim of our systematic review to develop a checklist for researchers to use when designing future clinical trials of stuttering interventions.

We have pre-registered our review at Prospero (see here). Pre-registration is an increasingly common step in open research practices. It aims to minimise duplication of systematic reviews and reduce publication bias by allowing people to compare completed systematic reviews with the original protocol planned (i.e., research questions, selection criteria and search terms). If you want to learn more about pre-registration, take a look at Gonzales and Cunningham’s article from 2015 or alternatively visit the Prospero home page

From the EST-project team!

Hurray – Our Cochrane Review has been registered!

We received some very exciting news at the end of last week, our Cochrane Review ‘Behavioural interventions for reducing stuttering in children aged 2-5 years’ has been registered which means we can commence working on the protocol for our review! 

 

Our PhD-candidate, Åse Sjøstrand, will be the first author of this review and will collaborate with an international team: Elaina Kefalianos, Arne Lervåg, Elisabeth Holm, Hilde Hofslundsengen, Melanie Kirmess, a post-doctoral student (to be determined) and Kari-Anne Bottegaard Næss. The aim of our review is to identify the best intervention worldwide for children who stutter. Currently, approaches to managing preschool stuttering differ internationally; different interventions are being used in different countries. It is therefore essential to determine what the most effective available intervention is to inform future management of preschool children who stutter.

Cochrane is world renowned for publishing outstanding systematic reviews about health care intervention. To conduct a Cochrane Review, we will use a stringent set of protocols to evaluate and synthesise all of the empirical evidence that satisfies a set of pre-determined eligibility criteria. This process minimises the risk of bias thus ensuring that a high quality systematic review is produced. You can learn more about the Cochrane Review process here.

Cochrane is committed to promoting evidence-based healthcare to improve health outcomes worldwide. Health professionals and consumers have relied on Cochrane for the past 25 years to inform their decision-making about health care. As such, the EST-project team is very proud to be contributing to this global initiative to advance management of childhood stuttering! Over the next few months, we will be very busy developing the protocol for our systematic review. We look forward to sharing updates with you along the way!    

From the EST-project team