The Potential of Double Blinding with Two Placebo Acupuncture Needles: A Randomized Controlled Pilot-Trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Whether acupuncture treatment employing multiple penetrating, skin-touch placebo, or no-touch placebo needles designed for double blinding actually do blind practitioners and patients has not been investigated. We aimed to investigate this question.

Subjects

120 patients with functional neck/shoulder stiffness but in otherwise healthy condition were randomly assigned to a treatment using four penetrating, four skin-touch placebo, or four no-touch placebo needles. Each of six acupuncturists applied four needles to four acupoints in the neck/shoulder of 20 patients. Acupuncturists and patients were asked to guess the treatment mode and their confidence in their guesses on 100 mm visual analog scales.

Results

The kappa coefficients between practitioner guesses

SUBMITTER: Takayama M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5532973 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature