Skip to main content
. 2009 Oct-Dec;51(4):247–253. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.58288
Technical notes about the conduct, description and analysis of randomized controlled trials on remote intercessory prayer and healing
  1. The CONSORT statement may not be adequate for reporting trials that use nontraditional interventions such as prayer. In this context, the Standards for Reporting Interventions in Controlled Trials of Acupuncture (STRICTA) group has developed an extension of the reporting requirements relevant to clinical trials of acupuncture.[45] Scientists involved in prayer research, however, have no similar guidelines to follow. Dusek et al.,[46] describe consensus recommendations that require trials to provide greater details about the exact nature and content of interventions, details regarding patient personality dispositions, details regarding the “dose” of prayer, patient awareness of and blinding to the intervention and prayer logs that document the validity of the intervention, among other issues.

  2. A Bayesian approach to the analysis of research of this nature may carry advantages over the conventional approaches.[47,48]