Reporting Quality of English Randomized Controlled Trials on Acupuncture for Neck Disorders by the CONSORT Statement and STRICTA

Objective To evaluate the reporting quality of randomized controlled trials(RCTs) on acupuncture for neck disorder. Methods h ree databases including CENTRAL(Issue 3, 2010), MEDLINE and EMbase from January 2006 to December 2010 were searched electronically, and only English articles were included. A manual search for further references was conducted from those references initially identii ed. We identii ed 14 RCTs that used acupuncture as an intervention and assessed the quality of these reports against the Consolidated Standards for Reporting of Trials(CONSORT) statement and Standards for Reporting Interventions in Controlled Trials of Acupuncture(STRICTA). Results Finally 14 RCTs were included. Regarding the CONSORT statement, 9(64.3%) RCTs described the baseline demographic and clinical characteristics in each group. Only 7(50.0%) studies mentioned how the random sequence was generated. Only 6(42.9%) RCTs had adequate allocation concealment, with 4 RCTs which described the concealment in detail. Only 8(57.1%) RCTs used blinding, including 2 described as double-blind. Only two(14.3%) RCTs reported how the sample size was calculated. Corresponding to the items in STRICTA, 5(35.7%) RCTs reported the numbers of needles inserted. The others just indicated the acu-points. The needle type, model and the thickness of needles were reported in 12(85.7%) RCTs, but only 4(28.6%) mentioned the depths of insertion. There were only 4 RCTs(28.6%) that reported the background of the acupuncture practitioners and the duration of their training. Conclusion The RCTs of acupuncture for neck disorder meeting the criteria for the CONSORT statement and STRICTA still have room for improvement. Promoting the use of the CONSORT statement and STRICTA should help to improve the reporting quality of acupuncture related research, and hence to elucidate the scientii c understanding of acupuncture.