The Impact of Transfer Setup on the Performance of Independent Transfers: Phase I Final Report

Expert opinion on the current literature

Scientific literature databases were searched until June 2009 using 43 keywords resulting in 339 articles.  These were internally reviewed and narrowed to 41 articles which were formally assessed by thirteen external experts. Articles that 80% or more of the reviewers scored as moderately or highly relevant were included in the results.  Titles and abstracts of the articles were reviewed internally by two experts with at least four years of direct clinical and research experience working with full-time wheelchair users.  Articles that both experts agreed were relevant to the performance of independent wheelchair transfers were selected for the next step of review. Thirteen external reviewers who are collaborators and work in the assistive technology and/or the rehabilitation field were invited to participate in a study to formally evaluate the remaining studies.  Two reviewers held at minimum a bachelor’s degree, seven reviewers master’s degree, one was a physician and three held PhD degrees.  All the reviewers had greater than five years of clinical research and/or practical clinical experience.  The study was approved by the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board. 

External reviewers were sent a cover letter that described the purpose of the study and asked them to score each of the articles identified by the internal reviewers using a scoring sheet specifically devised for this study (Appendix 1).