WANG Yan 1,2,3 , LIU Wendi 1,2,3 , XU Zihan 4 , LI Yanfei 1,2,3 , CHEN Nan 5 , WANG Ziyi 1,2,3 , LI Xiuxia 1,2,3 , YANG Kehu 1,2,3
  • 1. Evidence Based Social Science Research Center/Health Technology Assessment Center, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P. R. China;
  • 2. Evidence Based Medicine Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P. R. China;
  • 3. Key Laboratory of Evidence Based Medicine and Knowledge Translation of Gansu Province, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P. R. China;
  • 4. School of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Clinical Medicine, Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou 730000, P. R. China;
  • 5. Rehabilitation Hospital of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an 710000, P. R. China;
LI Xiuxia, Email: lixiuxia@lzu.edu.cn; YANG Kehu, Email: kehuyangebm2006@126.com
Reporting specifications; Acupuncture therapy; Thematic synthesis method
10.7507/1672-2531.202305117
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Objective To systematically sort out acupuncture therapy research report specification issues and provide a reference for the selection of key problems in the specification of acupuncture therapy network meta-analysis reports. Methods Computer searches of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CNKI, WanFang Data, and VIP databases were conducted to collect studies related to reporting norms for acupuncture therapy, with a search time from inception to November 2022. Questions were constructed according to the SPIDER model and inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed. CASP was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the included literature, and a qualitative systematic evaluation thematic synthesis method was used to analyze, summarize, and integrate the questions on reporting norms for acupuncture therapy research evidence to create a pool of question entries. Results A total of 66 papers covering four countries were included, including 17 papers from qualitative studies and 49 papers from quantitative studies. The CASP evaluation results showed that the overall quality of the included studies was high, and the quality of the English studies was higher than that of the Chinese studies. The thematic synthesis method resulted in 22 question entries in 7 categories. The 7 categories of questions included title, abstract, preface, methods, results, discussion and other report specification questions. The 22 entries included "Is there a need to report specific types of acupuncture therapy", "Is there a need to report based on the type of original study and its number", etc. Conclusion There are many problems with reporting norms in existing acupuncture studies, so it is necessary to collate and summarize the key issues of reporting norms for acupuncture network meta-analysis to provide a scientific and theoretical basis for the development of reporting guidelines for acupuncture network meta-analysis.

Citation： WANG Yan, LIU Wendi, XU Zihan, LI Yanfei, CHEN Nan, WANG Ziyi, LI Xiuxia, YANG Kehu. Evidence reporting norms for acupuncture therapy research: a structural analysis. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2023, 23(12): 1449-1456. doi: 10.7507/1672-2531.202305117 Copy

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