Shen 2010a.

Methods	Groups: A: acupuncture, B: medicine control. Blinding: no information. Dropouts/withdrawals: 0. Duration of intervention: no information of baseline; 1 day' treatment; no follow‐up visits.
Participants	Number of participants screening/included/analyzed: not reported/60/60. Number of participants in each group: 30:30. Demographics: mean age 50.6 years in A, mean age 51.13 years in B; number of women 13:14. Number of participants who used antihypertensives: no information. Course of disease: mean 4.73 years in A; mean 4.67 years in B. Setting: inpatients from Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion and emergency department in The First Affiliated Hospital of Tianjin Medical University.
Interventions	Acupuncture points: Renyin, Hegu, Taichong, Quchi, Zusanli. Information on acupuncturists: no information. Deqi achieved?: yes. Control group intervention: nifedipine, 10 mg daily, immediately after patient hospitalization.
Outcomes	Primary outcome: change in SBP/DBP before and after treatment (BP measured 3 min after acupuncture session).
Study detail	Position for measuring BP: no information. BP measurements: no information. Time of each session: needles retained for 30 min. Number of treatment sessions: 1 (once). Frequency of treatment sessions: once a day. Time of recruiting: April to June 2009. Adverse events: no information.
Publication detail	LANGUAGE OF PUBLICATION: Chinese. Commercial funding: no. Non‐commercial funding: no. Publication status: peer review journal..
Notes	Only 1 treatment. BP measured at 3, 15, 30, 60 min, and 2, 4, and 6 hours.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Random number table.
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 participant dropout and withdraw.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Relevant outcomes presented.
Other bias	Unclear risk	No description.