Scope of Activities

The CAHE management committee takes an active role in fulfilling CAHE objectives in the state of South Australia and nationally where appropriate. This includes offering strategic support for key initiatives planned by CAHE, and offering advice with regard to special projects or CAHE requirements.

CAHE Goals

• To promote evidence-based allied health practice in a manner that supports the needs of researchers, teachers, clinicians, policy makers, administrators and patients;

• Conduct relevant multi-disciplinary and/or discipline-specific systematic reviews, based on the JBI structured approach to literature collation and appraisal;

• Collaborate with appropriate personnel to facilitate the development of Best Practice Information Sheets following completion of systematic reviews;

• Participate in the education of clinicians, researchers, staff and students regarding the importance and significance of evidence-based allied health practice in the form of workshops and short courses;

• Work on a consultancy basis (fee-for-service) for external agencies to undertake evidence-based practice activities;

• Facilitate a national and international forum for allied health professionals to enter a dialogue with professional associates and interested parties.

CAHE

focuses on issues that currently constrain the usability of much allied health evidence:

• the appropriateness of the research design relative to the research question and the condition being assessed;

• appropriate and accurate diagnostic/eligibility criteria;

• appropriately described allied health interventions;

the use of appropriate outcome measures that are valid, reliably administrated, sensitive to change, and relevant across patient subgroups.

JBI approved protocols

The following protocols have been approved via the JBI peer review process. This process provides a way of ensuring the rigor of the construction of the research topic and the process of searching the literature. Most of CAHE work will conform to the JBI systematic review process, unless there are specific contractual reasons for not doing so.
CAHE has a standardised layout and content summary for Protocol submission.

Protocol Titles (all works in progress)

Non-funded

1. Protocol:

The relevance and efficacy of critical appraisal tools for use with allied health research. Nicola Massey-Westropp, Saravana Kumar, Persis Katrak, Karen Grimmer, Andrea Bialocerkowski.

Staff at CAHE are currently undertaking the daunting task of reviewing all published critical appraisal tools, and distilling common elements in the instruments, aiming to produce a generic allied health critical appraisal tool!! So far 93 different critical appraisal tools have been critiqued, and some 31 core criteria identified. Our first findings? Very little commonality!

2. Protocol:

Efficacy of Manipulation and Mobilisation for Headaches: An Evidence-based Systematic Review. Thomas Larsen.

For more than a decade now, cervical spine mobilisation and manipulation has been a popular form of treatment for different headache types. Still the debate of the appropriateness, its source and its clinical efficacy continue. The research question remains: "What is the evidence for cervical spine mobilisation and/or manipulation in the management of headache?"

3. Protocol:

Efficacy of Physiotherapy Interventions in Post-traumatic Neck Disorders (Whiplash). Sonja Keller.

Nowadays, whiplash injuries not only pose a big problem to the healthcare system than also let many health professionals being unable to understand why some of these patients present with symptoms way past the average healing time. Often these patients are seen as malingerer. However, with days off from work and medical care requests following a whiplash trauma, health cover costs are raising immensely what leads to the question of the physiotherapy intervention with best evidence.

4. Work In Progress:

Protocol: Management of vestibular dysfunction. Susan Hillier or Debashish Das.

5. Work In Progress:

Protocol Community and home based rehabilitation for chronic stroke. Susan Hillier or Debashish Das.

6. Protocol:

Allied Health Service Quality: What key elements constitute "quality care"? Saravana Kumar.

The objective of this systematic review is to identify the key constructs of quality care in the professions of Physiotherapy and Chiropractics (with the primary focus on private practice) across all stakeholders within health care (patients, providers and funders).

What are the key elements which forms the basis of "quality" care in the professions of Physiotherapy and chiropractics, in particular in private practice, across all three stakeholders of health care namely patients, providers and funders.

Systematic Reviews

Joanna Briggs Institute, Royal Adelaide Hospital, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia, 5000, Australia
p: +61 8 8303 4880 f: +61 8 8303 4881 e: click to email