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The aim of this review was to determine the utility of home visits by occupational therapists before and after a patient is discharged from an acute care hospital. All relevant published studies were identified by searching the CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Occupational Therapy Systematic Evaluation of Evidence, and WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform databases. Randomized controlled trials were included regardless of sex, age, disease, and duration of acute hospitalization. The intervention was predischarge and postdischarge home visits made by an occupational therapist. The primary outcome was the ability to perform activities of daily living at 1 month after the intervention. We identified eight trials (including 1029 patients) that were eligible for inclusion. More than half of the trials had a low risk of bias in random sequence generation, and allocation concealment and the other half had a high risk of bias with regard to blinding of participants. However, the risk of bias in terms of blinding for outcomes assessment was low in more than half the studies. We found that home visits by an occupational therapist in a single study significantly reduced the prevalence of falls but had no significant effects on ability to perform activities of daily living, quality of life, or mood. We could not find adequate evidence to support routine home visits by an occupational therapist in the acute care. In the future, studies with larger sample sizes are needed to validate home visits by occupational therapists in patients after acute care hospitalization.

Numerous Cochrane Reviews (CRs) in the field of physiotherapy have been published, but their conclusiveness has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview and describe the conclusiveness of evidence from CRs regarding physiotherapy. We conducted a systematic search using the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in the Cochrane Library from 2008 through 2017 in the field of physiotherapy, the Physical Rehabilitation Evidence Database, and the CRs list on the Cochrane Rehabilitation website. Reviewers extracted the following data: year of publication, editorial group, number of articles meeting the criteria, number of patients enrolled, conclusiveness, and need for additional studies. Linear regression was used to determine whether the percentage of conclusive reviews was affected by the year of publication. Reviewers found 283 CRs in the field of physiotherapy, and only 16 (5.7%) of which were conclusive. The number of trials and participants enrolled in conclusive reviews were significantly higher than those in inconclusive reviews (P < 0.001). The percentage of conclusive reviews was significantly correlated with year of publication (P = 0.03). Almost all reviews recognized the need for additional studies. Most CRs in physiotherapy are inconclusive, and most emphasize the need for further research. The ability of a Cochrane Review to reach a conclusion is affected by the cumulative patient sample size and number of trials included in the analysis.