Defining, identifying, and evaluating clinical trials of stuttering treatments: a tutorial for clinicians.
OBJECTIVE
To develop a method for clinicians to evaluate stuttering treatment efficacy research with very little burden of work.


METHODS
The clinical trial is the most fundamental, clinically interpretable, and useful output unit of stuttering treatment research. We define a clinical trial of a stuttering treatment and specify 3 levels of clinical trials evidence. We use this taxonomy to identify and evaluate clinical trials of stuttering treatment. Our taxonomy draws on 2 fundamental principles of clinical trials used to evaluate health care: randomization and effect size.


RESULTS
Published clinical trials of stuttering treatments were identified and allocated to 1 of 3 levels of evidence.


CONCLUSIONS
We outline a 3-step, semi-automated, Internet-based method to identify the publication of a report of stuttering treatment efficacy. For a report identified as such, a 10-item checklist is applied to verify its status as a clinical trial and to allocate it to 1 of 3 levels of clinical trials evidence. The present taxonomy reduces the burden of work of a 136-item checklist in an existing taxonomy.
Australian Stuttering Research Centre, The University of Sydney, Gate 2 East Street, Lidcombe, NSW, Australia. m.onslow@usyd.edu.au
Mark
M
Onslow
Mark
M
Jones
Sue
S
O'Brian
Ross
R
Menzies
Ann
A
Packman
D006801:Humans; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013342:Stuttering / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*