Completeness of Reporting and Intervention Description in Articles on Psychological Interventions for Pediatric Patients with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis: A Meta-Research Study.

Introduction

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) presents not only physical but also psychological challenges for affected patients, frequently requiring comprehensive management that includes psychological interventions. Accurate and transparent reporting of interventions is essential to support reproducibility, facilitate clinical translation, and advance research quality. However, the completeness of intervention reporting and adherence to standardized guidelines in published studies on psychological interventions for pediatric AIS patients remains unclear.

Methods

We searched Medline, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) for studies involving psychological interventions in AIS. Intervention reporting was analyzed using the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist. Adherence to reporting guidelines was assessed for different study designs.

Results

We identified 18 studies, which had suboptimal reporting of interventions. For key TIDieR items, all studies reported the brief name and rationale, but completeness for other elements varied: methods (14/18 studies), materials (10/18), provider (6/18), and mode of delivery (8/18) were described inconsistently. Setting was reported in only 3/18 studies, whereas the details about tailoring, modifications, and fidelity were largely lacking or deemed non-applicable. For eight randomized trials, several critical CONSORT items, such as trial design, randomization procedures, blinding, and trial registration were often unreported. Among five observational studies, reporting of STROBE key elements such as study design, setting, eligibility criteria, and funding was more consistent, but methods addressing bias, participant flow, missing data, and category boundaries for variables were largely insufficient. Similar gaps were observed for relevant TREND checklist items for nonrandomized intervention studies.

Conclusions

The reporting of psychological interventions for AIS in the literature is frequently incomplete, especially for intervention details essential for the reproducibility of the intervention and assessment of risk of bias. Adoption of standardized reporting guidelines is necessary to improve intervention transparency, replicability, and translation into clinical practice. Future research should focus on prospective evaluations of reporting guideline implementation and its impact on research quality in this field.