Table 3.
Details of the 35 clinical recommendations discussed in the clinical practice guidelines
| Variable | N (%) |
|---|---|
| Comparators | |
| Sham acupuncture | 12 (34.3) |
| Other types of (sham) acupuncture | 11 (31.5) |
| Usual care or no treatment | 10 (28.6) |
| Anti-inflammatory or analgesic agents/injections | 3 (8.6) |
| Exercise, physical therapy, or orthopaedic treatments | 3 (8.6) |
| Not specified | 7 (20.0) |
| Significantly positive clinical effectiveness | |
| Pain relief | 16 (45.8) |
| Functional improvement | 16 (45.8) |
| Quality of life improvement | 3 (8.6) |
| Assessment system | |
| GRADE approach | 18 (51.5) |
| Good Practice Point grading system | 11 (31.5) |
| North American Spine Society Levels of Evidence | 4 (11.5) |
| American College of Physicians Grading System | 1 (2.9) |
| Oxford CEBM Levels of Evidence | 1 (2.9) |
| Reported direction of the recommendation | |
| Recommended or suggested for | 21 (60.0) |
| Recommended or suggested against | 6 (17.2) |
| Did not make recommendations | 8 (22.9) |
| Reported quality of evidence* | |
| High | 4 (11.5) |
| Moderate | 8 (22.9) |
| Low | 10 (28.6) |
| Very low | 10 (28.6) |
| Not reported or not applicable | 3 (8.6) |
| Standardised levels of evidence† | |
| Level 1 | 3 (8.6) |
| Level 1- | 16 (45.8) |
| Level 2 | 3 (8.6) |
| Level 2- | 2 (5.8) |
| Level 3 | 0 (0) |
| Level 4 | 0 (0) |
| Level 5 | 11 (31.5) |
| Standardised grades of recommendations† | |
| Grade A | 3 (8.6) |
| Grade B | 3 (8.6) |
| Grade C | 5 (14.3) |
| Grade D | 24 (68.6) |
CEBM Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, GRADE Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation
*When a recommendation was supported by multiple pieces of evidence of varying quality, the lowest quality level was used
†Oxford CEBM Levels of Evidence framework was adopted to standardise the levels of evidence and grades of recommendations of clinical recommendations