| Methods |
Design: three group parallel trial
Purpose: examine the effect of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) and placebo on postoperative pain |
| Participants |
Patients: postoperative patients
Baseline comparability: NS |
| Interventions |
Placebo: TENS with no current
Untreated: no TENS
Experimental: TENS with current
(Co‐intervention: standard pharmacological analgesic care) |
| Outcomes |
Number of analgesic injections |
| Notes |
Outcome not reported so that meta‐analysis is possible. |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Adequate sequence generation? |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Allocation concealment? |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Blinding?
Treatment provider |
Low risk |
'Der Versuchsaufbau entsprach Doppelblindbedingungen' |
| Blinding?
Outcome assessor |
Unclear risk |
Not relevant as patient reported outcome |
| Incomplete outcome data addressed?
All outcomes |
High risk |
Drop‐out > 15% or NS |
| Free of selective reporting? |
High risk |
Outcome not reported so that meta‐analysis is possible. |
| Free of other bias? |
Low risk |
|
| Trial size > 49? |
Low risk |
N = 117 |
| Clearly concealed allocation + trial size > 49 + drop‐out max 15% |
High risk |
Drop‐out > 15% or NS |
