Routinely collected data as real-world evidence for physiotherapy practice

• Published in: Physiotherapy theory and practice 2019-09, Vol.35 (9), p.805-809
• Main Authors: van Trijffel, Emiel, A.B. Oostendorp, Rob, Elvers, J.W. Hans
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Data Collection; Evidence-Based Practice; Humans; levels of evidence; Physical Therapy Specialty; physiotherapy; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; real-world evidence; Research Design; routinely collected data
• ISSN: 0959-3985; 1532-5040
• DOI: 10.1080/09593985.2019.1615678

Evidence-based practice is the current undisputed predominant paradigm within medicine and allied health care, particularly in physiotherapy. Despite its potential benefits, over the years various points of criticism have been formulated one of which is the overreliance on randomized clinical trials as the highest level of evidence for treatment effectiveness. In the current era, where the availability of large amounts of clinical data gathered during the course of care delivery is rapidly increasing as well as our ability to access, process, link, and analyze these data in fairly efficient ways, alternative sources to supplement rather than replace evidence from RCTs look promising. In this Editorial, we discuss the opportunities and limitations of these routinely collected data in physiotherapy research and provide several examples from the literature. We conclude that the use of routinely collected data in physiotherapy research has the potential to increasingly contribute to real-world evidence, particularly in musculoskeletal primary care physiotherapy, provided that researchers are aware of methodological limitations and adhere to reporting standards.