Table 1.

Key Terms and Study Definitions

Term	Definition
Acute pain	“Acute pain is defined as pain of recent onset and probable limited duration. It usually has an identifiable temporal and causal relationship to injury or disease.”aAcute pain management occurs in a variety of patient-care settings (e.g., prehospital, emergency department, and perioperative environments. b In all settings, patients may suffer from acute and chronic pain simultaneously.
Ear acupuncture	Ear acupuncture or auriculotherapy includes: ear acupuncture with needle skin penetration, electroacupuncture stimulation, laser acupuncture, and acupressure.c Unless otherwise specified, ear acupuncture includes all forms of auriculotherapy.
Sham ear acupuncture	“Sham is the term used to refer to a faked operative intervention used in the same manner as a placebo to enable blinding and reduce bias.”21 In ear acupuncture, sham includes: “1. same treatment on ear acupoints that are not theoretically effective for the condition; 2. same treatment on non-acupoints on the ear; 3. placebo needles or adhesive patches without pellet/seed on the same ear acupoints as experimental group; 4. pseudo-interventions (e.g., switched-off laser acupuncture devices, electro-acupuncture devices with minimum emission, Vaccaria seeds without pressing) on the same ear acupoints as [the] experimental group.”d The current authors would also include pharmacologic placebo techniques in this pseudo-intervention group.
Sham ear acupuncture trial (sham)	This is a trial comparing ear acupuncture alone against sham ear acupuncture alone.
Standard analgesia care (SAC) trial	This is a trial that use the SAC of pain care designated by the local institution, researcher, or guidelines as the comparator against acupuncture.
Ear acupuncture-as-an-adjunct to other analgesia (AdjEA) trial	This is a trial in which SAC is combined with ear acupuncture versus SAC alone.

^aReady LB, Oden R, Chadwick HS, Benedetti C, Rooke GA, Caplan R, Wild LM. Development of an anesthesiology-based postoperative pain management service. Anesthesiology. 1988;68(1):100–106.

^bTighe P, Buckenmaier CC 3rd, Boezaart AP, et al. Acute pain medicine in the United States: A status report. Pain Med. 2015;16(9):1806–1826.

^cRef. 15.

^dRef. 40.