Do acupuncture trials have lower risk of bias over the last five decades? A methodological study of 4 715 randomized controlled trials

Youlin Long, Rui Chen, Qiong Guo, Shanxia Luo, Jin Huang and Liang Du

PLOS ONE, 2020, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: Objective: To evaluate the change of the risk of bias (RoB) of acupuncture randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the past five decades. Methods: Multiple databases were searched. We included RCTs identified from systematic reviews (SRs) on acupuncture. General characteristics and RoB judgment for each domain were extracted. The proportions of RCTs at high and unclear RoB were calculated and the changes were examined by the Mann-Kendall test. Results: We included 368 SRs including 4 715 RCTs. The rates of RCTs at unclear RoB were the highest in allocation concealment (63%), and at the lowest in incomplete outcome data (35%); in the last five decades, statistically significant reductions were found for random sequence generation (P

Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0234491

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234491

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