Acupuncture in sham device controlled trials may not be as effective as acupuncture in the real world: a preliminary network meta-analysis of studies of acupuncture for hot flashes in menopausal women.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Randomised controlled trials of acupuncture performed using sham interventions to control for the placebo effect have mostly used two types of sham techniques: techniques with minimal insertion of acupuncture needles with no additional stimulation (shallow needling control) and techniques with sham acupuncture devices that do not penetrate the skin (sham device control). To achieve successful blinding, sham device controlled acupuncture trials also use the acupuncture base unit in the verum acupuncture group, but in the shallow needling control trials this is not necessary for the verum acupuncture treatment.

Objective

In this study, we analysed the estimated comparative effectiveness of these two verum acupuncture modalities in studies of acupuncture for menopaus

SUBMITTER: Kim TH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7041625 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature