Early and intensive Motor Training for people with spinal cord injuries (the SCI-MT Trial): description of the intervention

Abstract

Study design: Descriptive. Objectives: The primary objective is to describe the intervention that will be provided in a large multi-centre randomised controlled trial titled: Early and Intensive Motor Training for people with Spinal Cord Injuries (the SCI-MT Trial). The secondary objective is to describe the strategies that will be used to operationalise and standardise the Motor Training provided to participants while keeping the intervention person-centred. Methods: The paper focuses on the rationale and principles of Motor Training for people with spinal cord injuries (SCI). The description of the intervention is based on the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist. Specifically, it addresses the following 6 criteria of the TIDieR checklist: why the effectiveness of Motor Training is being examined; what, how, where and when the Motor Training will be administered; and how much Motor Training will be provided. Results: A detailed intervention manual has been developed to help standardise the delivery of the intervention. Conclusions: This paper describes the details of a complex intervention administered as part of a large randomised controlled trial. It will facilitate the subsequent interpretation of the trial results and enable the intervention to be reproduced in clinical practice and future trials.