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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Pain. 2017 Dec 2;19(5):455–474. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2017.11.005

Table 8.

Differences in effect size between different types of control group. A negative effect size indicates that there is a smaller difference in effect between acupuncture and control for group 1 than for group 2, that is, the effect of control group 1 is more similar to verum acupuncture than the effect of control group 2.

Sham Acupuncture
Group 1 Group 2 Effect Size (95% CI) p value
Penetrating needle sham Non-penetrating and non-needle sham −0.30 (−0.60, −0.00) 0.047
 Excluding B blinding grades −0.33 (−0.72, 0.05) 0.088
 Including Hinman trial −0.28 (−0.57, 0.01) 0.061
 Excluding Vas trials −0.07 (−0.24, 0.10) 0.4
Non-penetrating needle sham Non-needle sham 0.13 (−0.44, 0.70) 0.6
 Including Hinman trial 0.18 (−0.34, 0.70) 0.5
 Excluding Vas trials −0.18 (−0.52, 0.17) 0.3
True acupuncture points, excluding penetrating needle sham Non-acupuncture points, excluding penetrating needle sham −0.02 (−0.70, 0.66) 0.9
 Including Hinman trial −0.05 (−0.71, 0.61) 0.9
 Excluding Vas trials −0.22 (−0.75, 0.30) 0.4
No Acupuncture Controls
Group 1 Group 2 Effect Size (95% CI) p value
High intensity Usual care and low intensity −0.23 (−0.50, 0.05) 0.11
High intensity Low intensity −0.81 (−1.26, −0.36) 0.0004
Usual care Low intensity −0.65 (−0.98, −0.31) 0.0002