Assessment of the reporting quality of randomised controlled trials of massage

Chinese Medicine

Xuan Zhang¹  Zhaoxiang Bian¹  Taixiang Wu²  Weifeng Xiong³  Xiaohan Zhou³  Chen Zhao⁴  Hongcai Shang⁵  Guihua Tian⁵  Jiangxia Miao⁶  Lin Zhang⁷  Xihong Wang⁷ 

[1] Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Chinese Medicine Clinical Study Centre, School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, 307 Room, Jockey Club School of Chinese Medicine Building, 7 Baptist University Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, HKSAR, China;Chinese EQUATOR Centre, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, HKSAR, China;Chinese Cochrane Centre, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, China Trial Registration Center, Chengdu, Sichuan, China;College of Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China;Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China;Key Laboratory of Chinese Internal Medicine of Ministry of Education and Beijing, Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China;School of Chinese medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, HKSAR, China;Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China;

关键词: CONSORT Extension;    Tuina;    Massage;    Nonpharmacologic treatment;    Randomised controlled trials (RCTs);    Reporting quality;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13020-021-00475-6

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

ObjectiveTo assess the reporting quality of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of massage, particularly whether necessary elements related to massage interventions were adequately reported.MethodsA total of 8 electronic databases were systematically searched for massage RCTs published in English and Chinese from the date of their inception to June 22, 2020. Quality assessment was performed using three instruments, namely the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) 2010 Checklist (37 items), the CONSORT Extension for NPT (Nonpharmacologic Treatments) 2017 checklist (18 items), and a self-designed massage-specific checklist (16 items) which included massage rationale, intervention and control group details. Descriptive statistics were additionally used to analyse the baseline characteristics of included trials.ResultsA total of 2,447 massage RCTs were identified, of which most (96.8%) were distributed in China. For the completeness of CONSORT, NPT Extension, and massage-specific checklists, the average reporting percentages were 50%, 10% and 45%, respectively. Of 68 assessed items in total (exclusion of 3 repeated items on intervention), 42 were poorly presented, including 18 CONSORT items, 15 NPT items, and 9 massage-specific items. Although the overall quality of reporting showed slightly improvement in articles published after 2010, the international (English) journals presented a higher score of the CONSORT and NPT items, while the Chinese journals were associated with the increased score of massage-specific items.ConclusionThe quality of reporting of published massage RCTs is variable and in need of improvement. Reporting guideline “CONSORT extension for massage” should be developed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY