| Methods |
Design: three group parallel trial
Purpose: study the analgesic effect of electroacupuncture |
| Participants |
Patients: postoperative patients (hysterectomy)
Baseline comparability: yes |
| Interventions |
Placebo: needling without electrical stimulation at ST‐36
Untreated: no needling
Experiemental: needling with electrical stimulation at ST‐36
(Co‐intervention: pethidine and morphine at request) |
| Outcomes |
Use of morphine (mg at 8, 16 and 24 hours)
Pain
Time to first pethidine dose
Heart rate
Blood pressure
Oxygen saturation |
| Notes |
|
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Adequate sequence generation? |
Unclear risk |
'computer‐generated' |
| Allocation concealment? |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Blinding?
Treatment provider |
High risk |
Not described as double‐blind (placebo/acupuncture) |
| Blinding?
Outcome assessor |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Incomplete outcome data addressed?
All outcomes |
Low risk |
Drop‐out < 15% |
| Free of selective reporting? |
Unclear risk |
No protocol available |
| Free of other bias? |
Low risk |
|
| No signs of variance inequality or skewness? |
Low risk |
No variance inequality (F‐test not statistically significant) and no skewness (1.64 standard deviations does not exceed the mean) |
| Trial size > 49? |
Low risk |
N = 50 |
| Clearly concealed allocation + trial size > 49 + drop‐out max 15% |
High risk |
Allocation not clearly concealed |
