Skip to main content
. 2018 Nov 14;2018(11):CD008821. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD008821.pub2

Li 2012a.

Methods Groups: A: warm needling, B: acupuncture, C: medicine.
Blinding: no information.
Dropouts/withdrawals: 0.
Duration of intervention: no information of baseline; 2 weeks' treatment (total 14 treatments, with no elapsed days between consecutive treatment sessions), no follow‐up.
Participants Number of participants screening/included/analyzed: not reported/60/60.
Number of participants in each group: 20:20:20.
Demographics: mean age 63.1 years in A, 61.7 years in B, 62.0 years in C; number of women 7:6:7.
Number of participants who used antihypertensives: 3:5:4.
Course of disease: 2.08‐8.33 years, mean 5.11 years in A; 1.67‐7.75 years, mean 4.35 years in B; 1.33‐8.67 years, mean 4.89 years in C.
Setting: outpatients from Community Health Station, Beipei, Chongqin and the First Affiliated Hospital to TCM of Guangzhou.
Interventions Acupuncture points: in A: Siguan points (Hegu LI4 and Taichong LR3); in B: Siguan points (Hegu LI4 and Taichong LR3).
Information on acupuncturists: no information.
Deqi achieved?: yes.
Control group intervention: captopril 12.5 mg, BID, 14 days.
Outcomes Primary outcome:

  • change in SBP and DBP (measured right after acupuncture session).


Secondary outcomes:

  • change in BP;

  • change in heart rate, symptom score, and lipid profiles.
Study detail Position for measuring BP: sitting or decubitus.
BP measurements: mercurial sphygmomanometer.
Time of each session: A: until moxa stick moxibustion (length 2 cm) burning out; B: needles retained for 30 min and stimulated every 10 min.
Number of treatment sessions: 14 (for 2 courses).
Frequency of treatment sessions: every day, 7 days was a course.
Time of recruiting: May 2011 and January 2012.
Adverse events: no information.
Publication detail Language of publication: Chinese.
Commercial funding: no.
Non‐commercial funding: no.
Publication status: Masters thesis.
Notes  
Risk of bias
Bias Authors' judgement Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias) Unclear risk No description.
Allocation concealment (selection bias) Unclear risk No description.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) 
 All outcomes High risk Participants and investigators not blinded to acupuncture or pills.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) 
 All outcomes Low risk No attrition.
Selective reporting (reporting bias) Low risk Relevant outcome reported.
Other bias Unclear risk No description.