Table 1.
Characteristics of included articles (n = 2447)
| Characteristic | n (%) |
|---|---|
| Languages of published journals | |
| Chinese | 2368 (96.8) |
| English | 79 (3.2) |
| Type of published journals | |
| Comprehensive medical journals | 936 (38.3) |
| CAM/CM specific journals | 1288 (52.6) |
| Massage specific journals | 223 (9.1) |
| Grades of Chinese journals | |
| Medical core journalsa (Yes) | 702 (29.6) |
| Impact factor of international (English) journalsb | |
| 0–4 | 75 (94.9) |
| 5–10 | 1 (1.3) |
| > 10 | 3 (3.8) |
| Number of authors included | |
| 1 | 901 (36.8) |
| 2–5 | 1241 (50.7) |
| 6–10 | 289 (11.8) |
| > 10 | 16 (0.7) |
| Institution of the corresponding author | |
| Hospital | 2279 (93.1) |
| University | 137 (5.6) |
| Research Institute | 28 (1.1) |
| Others | 3 (0.1) |
| Type of conditions treated (top five) | |
| Diseases of the musculoskeletal system or connective tissue | 1,078 (44.1) |
| Symptoms, signs or clinical findings, not elsewhere classified | 249 (10.2) |
| Diseases of the nervous system | 236 (9.6) |
| Pregnancy, childbirth or the puerperium | 180 (7.4) |
| Diseases of the digestive system | 174 (7.1) |
| Studied disease(s) with CM Pattern(s) | |
| Yes | 155 (6.3) |
| Experimental group | |
| Only massage intervention(s) | 664 (27.1) |
| Other interventions administered to massage | 1783 (72.9) |
| Type of blinding | |
| Single | 60 (2.5) |
| Double | 16 (0.7) |
| Open label | 2,306 (94.2) |
| Not reported | 65 (2.7) |
| Number of assigned groups | |
| 2 | 2342 (95.7) |
| 3 | 80 (3.3) |
| > 3 | 25 (1.0) |
| Sample size | |
| 1–50 | 239 (9.8) |
| 51–100 | 1383 (56.5) |
| 101–300 | 764 (31.2) |
| 301–500 | 38 (1.6) |
| > 500 | 23 (1.0) |
| Trial participating centre | |
| Single centre | 2388 (97.6) |
| Multi-centre | 59 (2.4) |
| Outcomes including CM-related indicators | |
| Yes | 181 (7.4) |
| Number of times cited | |
| 0 | 566 (23.1) |
| 1–5 | 1200 (49.0) |
| 6–10 | 339 (13.9) |
| 11–20 | 229 (9.4) |
| > 20 | 113 (4.6) |
| Ethics approval | |
| Yes | 1339 (54.7) |
| Declaration of conflict of interest | |
| Yes | 1871 (76.5) |
CAM complementary and alternative medicine, CM Chinese medicine
aAccording to the 2019 China Science and Technology Core Journals Catalog (Natural Science Volume) [22]
bThe impact factor (IF) of an academic international journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly average number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal. The record of IF was collected from the journal formal website of each targeted journal in Oct 2020.