A PARADIGM SHIFT FOR DESIGNING HEALTH-RELATED INTERVENTION STUDIES IN EXERCISE SCIENCE AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION / 体力科学

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, a strong movement toward objective research (i.e., evidence-based medicine) has emerged in the fields of exercise science and physical education. It is now well-recognized that randomized, controlled trials (RCTs), when appropriately designed, represent the gold standard in medical studies and are usually considered of greatest evidentiary value for assessing the efficacy of interventions. RCTs are particularly effective for evaluation of drugs, devices, and procedures. In order to improve quality of reporting of RCTs, the consolidated standards of reporting trials (CONSORT) statement was developed in 1996 and use of the CONSORT statement has improved the reporting quality of RCTs over the past several years. However, RCTs are often not practical or not ethical for evaluating many public health interventions. Having a control group (no exercise, no diet, and/or no lifestyle modification) in intervention-based studies using unhealthy humans is definitely undesirable. There are viable options that should be used. For example, a trial having three groups (e.g., 1-day per week exercise group, 3-day per week exercise group, and 5-day per week exercise group) would be of more value for people with lifestyle-related diseases than having one group that does nothing. With these in mind, a paradigm shift in terms of designing health-related intervention studies for the fields of exercise science and physical education is proposed in this article.