Give me freakin’ break!! Yet again JAPMA has let us down with another appalling publication of a randomized controlled trial. I would have thought they might have learnt something from the previous debacle.
The publication falls substantially short of the CONSOORT standards for the information that should be included in a report of an RCT that JAPMA has been urged to adhere to. All other main/important medical journals do adhere to it.
I do not know where to start with this publication, as there is just so much wrong and so much not reported:
- there is no information reported on the baseline data and characteristics of the two groups, so we have no idea of the randomization process was successful. We have no idea if there was any differences in the groups at baseline. Every RCT that gets published reports this data.
- there is no means and standard deviations reported of the outcome measures at baseline and follow up, so we have no idea what they were.
- they used a simple t-test to compare the differences in the outcome measure between the two groups. One of the assumptions of a t-test is that the variance between the two measures is approximately equal (though this can be violated a bit). We have no idea what the variance is as the authors did not report it. However, if you look at the figure, there appears to be a large variance in one group. BUT, we can’t actually tell as it’s a box blot and not really the variance, but you could assume its high. They should not have used a t-test.
- they should have used an ANCOVA to account for any potential differences in the baseline values, but we do not know if there were any as they did not report it.
- "Sixty patients (76 feet)" - they obviously used two feet in some subjects. You can't do that!
- etc
- etc
I will be at this all day if I do not stop now.
Certainly the conclusion of the authors “this modality should be included in the standard of care for treating plantar fasciopathy” cannot be supported based on the information provided by the authors. It is woefully inadequate.