A study on the effectiveness of pharmacopuncture for chronic neck pain: A protocol for a pragmatic randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Neck pain is a common musculoskeletal disorder that impacts individuals' daily life, and might sometimes lead to disability and increased medical costs. Pharmacopuncture combines acupuncture with herbal medicine, in which herbal extracts are administered on the acupoints. We designed a pragmatic randomized controlled trial (RCT) to compare the effectiveness of pharmacopuncture and physical therapy as a treatment for chronic neck pain.

Methods

This study is a 2-armed, parallel, multi-center RCT. The participants will be randomly assigned to pharmacopuncture or physical therapy group to receive their respective 8-session treatments for 4 weeks. The primary outcome is the visual analogue scale of neck pain. Secondary outcomes is the Northwick Park questionnaire, visu

SUBMITTER: Park KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7402875 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature