Reporting Quality of Systematic Reviews/Meta-Analyses of Acupuncture

Liu, Yali; Zhang, Rui; Huang, Jiao; Zhao, Xu; Liu, Danlu; Sun, Wanting; Mai, Yuefen; Zhang, Peng; Wang, Yajun; Cao, Hua; Yang, Ke

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0113172

Cited by 24 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Yet most of the participants could give advice about the information they need in an article, based on their clinical experience of acupuncture. Forty-three percent of the respondents were not satisfied with the adequacy of information reported in SR/MAs, which corresponds to the poor reporting quality of acupuncture SR/MAs [16]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, respondents were invited to provide any item they thought important but were missing in our list. The initial items in part three were based on the analysis of existing reporting guidelines, such as STRICTA and PRISMA, and a systematic review of 476 SR/MAs on acupuncture [16] (see Additional file 1 for a copy of the questionnaire).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 2012, the assessment of the published 476 acupuncture SRs/MAs with PRISMA and their included RCTs showed low quality in general. Information from those studies could not meet the needs of acupuncture practitioners, and therefore was not usable for implementation [16]. Furthermore, the results from a survey of the application status of the PRISMA statement indicated that it was rarely used in the field of acupuncture, possibly because of knowledge gaps among researchers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A survey of evidence users about the information need of acupuncture clinical evidence

Shi

Wang²,

Liu³

et al. 2016

BMC Complement Altern Med

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BackgroundThe PRISMA statement was rarely used in the field of acupuncture, possibly because of knowledge gaps and the lack of items tailored for characteristics of acupuncture. And with an increasing number of systematic reviews in acupuncture, it is necessary to develop an extension of PRISMA for acupuncture. And this study was the first step of our project, of which the aim was to investigate the need for information of clinical evidence on acupuncture from the perspectives of evidence users.MethodsWe designed a questionnaire based on a pilot survey and a literature review of acupuncture systematic review or meta-analysis(SR/MA). Participants from five cities (Lanzhou, Chengdu, Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing) representing the different regions of China, including clinicians, researchers and postgraduates in their second year of Master studies or higher level, were surveyed.ResultsA total of 269 questionnaires were collected in 18 hospitals, medical universities and research agencies, and 251 (93 %) with complete data were used for analysis. The average age of respondents was 33 years (SD 8.959, range 25–58) with male 43 % and female 57 %. Most respondents had less than 5 years of working experience on acupuncture, and read only one to five articles per month. Electronic databases, search engines and academic conferences were the most common sources for obtaining information. Fifty-six percent of the respondents expressed low satisfaction of the completeness of information from the literature. The eight items proposed for acupuncture SR/MAs received all high scores, and five of the items scored higher than eight on a scale zero to ten. The differences for the scores of most items between postgraduates and non-postgraduates were not statistically significant.ConclusionsThe majority of the respondents were not very satisfied with the information provided in acupuncture SRs. Most of the items proposed in this questionnaire received high scores, and opinions from postgraduates and non-postgraduates tended to agree on most items. Comments from the respondents can promote future work.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12906-016-1434-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A survey of evidence users about the information need of acupuncture clinical evidence

Shi

Wang²,

Liu³

et al. 2016

BMC Complement Altern Med

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“…STRICTA recommend that six items should be included: rationale, details of needling (e.g., points used, depth, angle, needle thickness, number of needles), treatment regimen, co-intervention, practitioner background and control interventions [219]. The impact of using STRICTA has been positive with improvements in reporting quality of RCTs on acupuncture [220][221][222][223]. In 2008, White et al published a meta-analysis that provided evidence that better outcomes in comparisons of acupuncture with non-acupuncture controls were achieved when noted that greater numbers of needles and treatment sessions were used [214].…”

Section: The Challenge Of Adequacy Of Dosementioning

confidence: 99%

Acupuncture for the Relief of Chronic Pain: A Synthesis of Systematic Reviews

Paley

Johnson

2019

Medicina

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Background and Objectives: It is estimated that 28 million people in the UK live with chronic pain. A biopsychosocial approach to chronic pain is recommended which combines pharmacological interventions with behavioural and non-pharmacological treatments. Acupuncture represents one of a number of non-pharmacological interventions for pain. In the current climate of difficult commissioning decisions and constantly changing national guidance, the quest for strong supporting evidence has never been more important. Although hundreds of systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses have been conducted, most have been inconclusive, and this has created uncertainty in clinical policy and practice. There is a need to bring all the evidence together for different pain conditions. The aim of this review is to synthesise SRs of RCTs evaluating the clinical efficacy of acupuncture to alleviate chronic pain and to consider the quality and adequacy of the evidence, including RCT design. Materials and Methods: Electronic databases were searched for English language SRs and meta-analyses on acupuncture for chronic pain. The SRs were scrutinised for methodology, risk of bias and judgement of efficacy. Results: A total of 177 reviews of acupuncture from 1989 to 2019 met our eligibility criteria. The majority of SRs found that RCTs of acupuncture had methodological shortcomings, including inadequate statistical power with a high risk of bias. Heterogeneity between RCTs was such that meta-analysis was often inappropriate. Conclusions: The large quantity of RCTs on acupuncture for chronic pain contained within systematic reviews provide evidence that is conflicting and inconclusive, due in part to recurring methodological shortcomings of RCTs. We suggest that an enriched enrolment with randomised withdrawal design may overcome some of these methodological shortcomings. It is essential that the quality of evidence is improved so that healthcare providers and commissioners can make informed choices on the interventions which can legitimately be provided to patients living with chronic pain.

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“…Acupuncture has long been used in East-Asian countries, and is recently gaining popularity not only in East-Asian countries but also in Western countries [21][22][23][24] . Accordingly, the number of acupuncture publications including RCT reports has increased over the past decades 25,26) . However, reporting biases in acupuncture RCTs hamper the reliability of the evidence.…”

Section: the International Committee Of Medical Journal Editorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association of Trial Registration with Reporting Biases in Randomized Controlled Trials of Acupuncture

et al. 2018

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Objectives : To investigate the association of trial registration status with presence of reporting bias including publication bias and outcome reporting bias in recently published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture. Methods : A PubMed search for RCTs of acupuncture published from March 2016 to February 2017 was conducted. Primary outcomes were identified and the direction of the results was judged as positive (i.e., statistically significant) or negative. The trial registration was identified by manually screening the trial registration number in the main text of the published article and classified into 1) prospective registration; 2) retrospective registration based on the registration date or; 3) no registration. Results : Of the 125 included RCTs, only 40 studies (32.0%) prospectively registered the study protocols. Among 65 RCTs that adequately reported the primary outcome, unregistered trials were more likely to report positive results than the registered ones (p=0.013). Of the 40 prospectively registered studies, 19 trials (47.5%) had the discrepancies between the registered and published primary outcomes and furthermore, 40% of them reported the positive findings. Conclusions : Unregistered trials were more likely to report positive results and the discrepancies between the registered and published primary outcomes were detected in about a half of the prospectively registered studies, 42.1% of which tended to report positive findings. Journal editors and researchers in this field should be alerted to various reporting biases.

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Reporting Quality of Systematic Reviews/Meta-Analyses of Acupuncture

Cited by 24 publications

References 22 publications

A survey of evidence users about the information need of acupuncture clinical evidence

A survey of evidence users about the information need of acupuncture clinical evidence

Acupuncture for the Relief of Chronic Pain: A Synthesis of Systematic Reviews

Association of Trial Registration with Reporting Biases in Randomized Controlled Trials of Acupuncture

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