Appropriateness of exercise therapy delivery in chronic low back pain management: cross-sectional online survey of physiotherapy practice in Germany.

BACKGROUND: In Germany, exercise therapy represents the most commonly prescribed physiotherapy service for non-specific, chronic low back pain (NSCLBP). So far, little is known about current practice patterns of German physiotherapists in delivering this intervention. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the appropriateness of exercise therapy delivered to NSCLBP patients in German physiotherapy care and to identify practitioner-related drivers of appropriate exercise delivery. METHODS: We used a vignette-based, exploratory, cross-sectional, online-survey study design (76-items; data collection between May and July 2023). Eligible participants were required to hold a professional degree in physiotherapy and were required to be practicing in Germany. Access links to anonymous online surveys were spread via established German physiotherapy networks, educational platforms, social media, e-mail lists, and snowball sampling. Appropriateness of exercise therapy was calculated by an equally weighted total score (400 points) including scales on shared-decision-making, exercise dose selection, pain knowledge and self-management promotion. "Appropriate exercise delivery" was determined by a relative total score achievement of > 80%. "Partly appropriate exercise delivery" was determined by a relative total score achievement of 50-79%, and "inappropriate exercise delivery" by a score achievement of < 50%. Practitioner-related drivers of exercise appropriateness were calculated by bivariate and multiple linear regression analyses. RESULTS: 11.9% (N = 35) of 298 physiotherapists' exercise delivery was considered "appropriate", 83.3% (N = 245) was "partly appropriate", and 4.8% (N = 14) was "inappropriate". In the final multiple regression model, most robust parameters positively influencing appropriate delivery of exercise therapy were increased scientific literacy (B = 10.540; 95% CI [0.837; 20.243]), increased average clinical assessment time (B = 0.461; 95% CI [0.134; 0.789]), increased self-perceived treatment competence (B = 7.180; 95% CI [3.058; 11.302], and short work experience (B = - 0.520; 95% CI [-0.959; - 0.081]). CONCLUSION: Appropriate exercise delivery in NSCLBP management was achieved by only 11.9% of respondents. However, the vast majority of 95.2% of respondents was classified to deliver exercise therapy partly appropriate. Long work experience seemed to negatively affect appropriate exercise delivery. Positive influences were attributed to scientific literacy, the average clinical assessment time per patient as well as the perceived treatment competence in NSCLBP management. REGISTRATION: Open science framework: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/S76MF .

Large-Scale Web Scraping for Problem Gambling Research: A Case Study of COVID-19 Lockdown Effects in Germany.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to prevent its spread have had a negative impact on substance use behaviour. It is likely that social distancing and lockdown measures have also altered gambling behaviour, for instance shifting from land-based to online gambling. We used large-scale web scraping to analyse posting behaviour on a major German online gambling forum, gathering a database of more than 200k posts. We examined the usage of different subforums, i.e. terrestrial, online gambling and problem gambling sections, and changes in posting behaviour related to the casino closures that were part of the nationwide restrictions in Germany in 2020. There was a marked increase in newly registered users during the first lockdown compared to the preceding weeks, an increase in the number of posts in the online gambling subforum and concurrent decrease in the terrestrial gambling subforum. Further, the number of short-latency replies was higher during the first lockdown compared to the preceding weeks. Many users who posted in both the online and terrestrial forum contributed at least once to the problem gambling subforum, implying that the topic of problem gambling is widely discussed. Our findings may indicate a shift from terrestrial to online gambling during lockdown, and mirror the general increase in screen time and usage of online platforms after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analyses help to identify lockdown-related effects on gambling behaviour. These potentially detrimental effects pose a special threat for individuals at risk and may require monitoring and special public health measures.

Automatic detection of problem-gambling signs from online texts using large language models.

Problem gambling is a major public health concern and is associated with profound psychological distress and economic problems. There are numerous gambling communities on the internet where users exchange information about games, gambling tactics, as well as gambling-related problems. Individuals exhibiting higher levels of problem gambling engage more in such communities. Online gambling communities may provide insights into problem-gambling behaviour. Using data scraped from a major German gambling discussion board, we fine-tuned a large language model, specifically a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model, to predict signs of problem-gambling from forum posts. Training data were generated by manual annotation and by taking into account diagnostic criteria and gambling-related cognitive distortions. Using cross-validation, our models achieved a precision of 0.95 and F1 score of 0.71, demonstrating that satisfactory classification performance can be achieved by generating high-quality training material through manual annotation based on diagnostic criteria. The current study confirms that a BERT-based model can be reliably used on small data sets and to detect signatures of problem gambling in online communication data. Such computational approaches may have potential for the detection of changes in problem-gambling prevalence among online users.

The use of systematic reviews for conducting new studies in physiotherapy research: a meta-research study comparing author guidelines of physiotherapy-related journals.

BACKGROUND: Requiring authors to base their research on a systematic review of the existing literature prevents the generation of redundant scientific studies, thereby avoiding the deprivation of effective therapies for trial participants and the waste of research funds. Scientific medical journals could require this in their author guidelines. While this applies to all areas of research, it is also relevant to physiotherapy and rehabilitation research, which predominantly involve interventional trials in patients. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which the use of systematic reviews to justify a new trial is already being requested by physiotherapy-related scientific medical journals (PTJs). In addition, a comparison was made between PTJs and scientific medical journals with the highest impact factor in the Science Citation Index Extended (SCIE). METHODS: This meta-research study is based on a systematic examination of the author guidelines of 149 PTJs. The journals were identified and included based on the number of publications with physiotherapy as a keyword in the databases PEDro, and Medline (Pubmed). The included author guidelines were analysed for the extent to which they specified that a new trial should be justified by a systematic review of the literature. Additionally, they were compared with 14 scientific medical journals with the highest impact factor in the SCIE (LJs). RESULTS: In their author guidelines, none of the included PTJs required or recommended the use of a systematic review to justify a new trial. Among LJs, four journals (28.57%), all associated with the Lancet group, required the study justification through a systematic review of the literature. CONCLUSION: Neither PTJs nor LJs require or recommend the use of a systematic review to justify a new trial in their author guidelines. This potentially leaves room for unethical scientific practices and should be critically considered in future research.

Barriers, facilitators and implementation strategies for guideline-adherence in physiotherapy: a scoping review protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Guideline-adherent physiotherapy can improve patient outcomes and reduce costs in the healthcare system. However, although there are numerous guidelines for physiotherapy practice, services are not consistently based on clinical practice guidelines. While various systematic and scoping reviews have highlighted barriers, facilitators and implementation strategies for guideline-adherent practice in other health professions, this scoping review aims to explore the barriers and facilitators for guideline-adherent physiotherapy and summarises the strategies used to implement such practice. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This scoping review will be based on Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review methodology and the methodological guidance for conducting scoping reviews published by Joanna Briggs Institute. Relevant publications will be first searched from the beginning of June 2023 on the MEDLINE and CINAHL databases before we expand the search to other databases such as EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and PEDro at the end of June 2023. Two reviewers will independently screen the titles and abstracts of all retrieved citations for inclusion against the eligibility criteria before conducting an independent full-text screening. The criteria will be tested on a sample of abstracts before beginning the abstract review to ensure that they are robust enough to capture any articles that may relate. The extracted data will finally be collated and charted to summarise key findings regarding our research question. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This scoping review will provide an extensive overview of the barriers, facilitators and implementation strategies for guideline-adherent physiotherapy. As scoping reviews are a form of secondary data analysis, ethical review is not required. Results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication and stakeholder meetings. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: This scoping review has been registered on 3 April 2023 on the Open Science Framework under https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SEUW6.