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Abstract
Objectives The objectives of this study are to assess reporting of evidence-based healthcare (EBHC) e-learning interventions using the Guideline for Reporting Evidence-based practice Educational interventions and Teaching (GREET) checklist and explore factors associated with compliant reporting.
Design Methodological cross-sectional study.
Methods Based on the criteria used in an earlier systematic review, we included studies comparing EBHC e-learning and any other form of EBHC training or no EBHC training. We searched Medline, Embase, ERIC, CINAHL, CENTRAL, SCOPUS, Web of Knowledge, PsycInfo, ProQuest and Best Evidence Medical Education up to 4 January 2023. Screening of titles, abstracts, full-text articles and data extraction was done independently by two authors. For each study, we assessed adherence to each of the 17 GREET items and extracted information on possible predictors. Adequacy of reporting for each item of the GREET checklist was judged with yes (provided complete information), no (provided no information), unclear (when insufficient information was provided), or not applicable, when the item was clearly of no relevance to the intervention described (such as for item 8—details about the instructors—in the studies which used electronic, self-paced intervention, without any tutoring). Studies’ adherence to the GREET checklist was presented as percentages and absolute numbers. We performed univariate analysis to assess the association of potential adherence predictors with the GREET checklist. We summarised results descriptively.
Results We included 40 studies, the majority of which assessed e-learning or blended learning and mostly involved medical and other healthcare students. None of the studies fully reported all the GREET items. Overall, the median number of GREET items met (received yes) per study was 8 and third quartile (Q3) of GREET items met per study was 9 (min. 4 max. 14). When we used Q3 of the number of items met as cut-off point, adherence to the GREET reporting checklist was poor with 7 out of 40 studies (17.5%) reporting items of the checklist on acceptable level (adhered to at least 10 items out of 17). None of the studies reported on all 17 GREET items. For 3 items, 80% of included studies well reported information (received yes for these items): item 1 (brief description of intervention), item 4 (evidence-based practice content) and item 6 (educational strategies). Items for which 50% of included studies reported complete information (received yes for these items) included: item 9 (modes of delivery), item 11 (schedule) and 12 (time spent on learning). The items for which 70% or more of included studies did not provide information (received no for these items) included: item 7 (incentives) and item 13 (adaptations; for both items 70% of studies received no for them), item 14 (modifications of educational interventions—95% of studies received no for this item), item 16 (any processes to determine whether the materials and the educational strategies used in the educational intervention were delivered as originally planned—93% of studies received no for this item) and 17 (intervention delivery according to schedule—100% of studies received no for this item). Studies published after September 2016 showed slight improvements in nine reporting items. In the logistic regression models, using the cut-off point of Q3 (10 points or above) the odds of acceptable adherence to GREET guidelines were 7.5 times higher if adherence to other guideline (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials, Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology, etc) was reported for a given study type (p=0.039), also higher number of study authors increased the odds of adherence to GREET guidance by 18% (p=0.037).
Conclusions Studies assessing educational interventions on EBHC e-learning still poorly adhere to the GREET checklist. Using other reporting guidelines increased the odds of better GREET reporting. Journals should call for the use of appropriate use of reporting guidelines of future studies on teaching EBHC to increase transparency of reporting, decrease unnecessary research duplication and facilitate uptake of research evidence or result.
Study registration number The Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/V86FR).
- Evidence-Based Practice
- Methods
- Clinical Decision-Making
- Health
Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. The raw data used in the analyses of this manuscript will be made available upon publication on the OSF site of the project (44).
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Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. The raw data used in the analyses of this manuscript will be made available upon publication on the OSF site of the project (44).
Footnotes
Contributors Study design: MMB, TPP, AR and TY. Data collection and analyses: MMB, TPP, MFZ, NB, JZ, NVM, MG and AR. Writing the first draft of the manuscript: MMB, TPP and JZ. Critical revision of the manuscript: all authors. Approval of the final version of the manuscript: all authors read and approved the final manuscript. MMB and TPP are responsible for the overall content as the guarantors.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Disclaimer We planned to analyse inter-rater reliability by using the Cohen kappa statistic; however, due to mainly narrative type of data such analysis was not possible. Individual assessments in duplicate checked by the third reviewer minimise the potential for error. We planned to score the items 0.5 if the reporting was partially adequate, and we planned to provide description and categorise of what was missing. Due to the nature of the data, we did not score the items with 0.5 partially reported items. We planned to use StatsDirect software but due to outdated subscription we used SAS software.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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