Table 6.
GRADE evidence profile.
| Certainty assessment | No. of patients | Effect | Certainty | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of studies | Study design | Risk of bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Other considerations | APT | Control |
Relative (95% CI) |
Absolute (95% CI) |
|
| Global score on PSQI | |||||||||||
| 9 | Randomized trials | Seriousa | Seriousb | Not serious | Not serious | None | 282 | 284 | - | SMD 1.13 lower (1.48 lower to 0.78 lower) |
⨁⨁◯◯ LOW |
| Effective rate | |||||||||||
| 13 | Randomized trials | Seriousa | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | 350/407 (86.0%) |
277/409 (67.7%) |
RR 1.24 (1.13 to 1.36) |
163 more per 1,000 (from 88 more to 244 more) |
⨁⨁⨁◯ MODERATE |
| Adverse events | |||||||||||
| 3 | Randomized trials | Seriousa | Seriousb | Not serious | Seriousc | None | 3/110 (2.7%) |
22/113 (19.5%) |
RR 0.19 (0.01 to 2.89) |
158 fewer per 1,000 (from 193 fewer to 368 more) |
⨁◯◯◯ VERY LOW |
GRADE: Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation; APT: auricular plaster therapy; PSQI: Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; CI: confidence interval; SMD: standardized mean difference; RR: risk ratio.
GRADE Working Group grades of evidence: high quality: further research is very unlikely to change our confidence in the estimate of effect; moderate quality: further research is likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and may change the estimate; low quality: further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate; very low quality: we are very uncertain about the estimate.
aMost information is from studies at significant risk of bias (Figure 2). Potential limitations are likely to lower confidence in the estimate of effect.
bSubstantial heterogeneity in results remains unexplained.
c95% CI is wide enough that they overlaps no effect (i.e., 95% CI includes RR of 1.0).