• BMJ open · Jun 2014

    Randomized Controlled Trial

    Acupuncture as analgesia for non-emergent acute non-specific neck pain, ankle sprain and primary headache in an emergency department setting: a protocol for a parallel group, randomised, controlled pilot trial.

    • Kun Hyung Kim, Ji Ho Ryu, Maeng Real Park, Yong In Kim, Mun Ki Min, Yong Myeon Park, Yu Ri Kim, Seung Hee Noh, Min Joo Kang, Young Jun Kim, Jae Kyu Kim, Byung Ryul Lee, Jun Yong Choi, and Gi Young Yang.
    • Division of Clinical Medicine, School of Korean Medicine, Pusan National University, Yangsan, South Korea.
    • BMJ Open. 2014 Jun 12; 4 (6): e004994.

    IntroductionThis study aims to assess the feasibility of acupuncture as an add-on intervention for patients with non-emergent acute musculoskeletal pain and primary headache in an emergency department (ED) setting.Methods And AnalysisA total of 40 patients who present to the ED and are diagnosed to have acute non-specific neck pain, ankle sprain or primary headache will be recruited by ED physicians. An intravenous or intramuscular injection of analgesics will be provided as the initial standard pain control intervention for all patients. Patients who still have moderate to severe pain after the 30 min of initial standard ED management will be considered eligible. These patients will be allocated in equal proportions to acupuncture plus standard ED management or to standard ED management alone based on computer-generated random numbers concealed in opaque, sealed, sequentially numbered envelopes. A 30 min session of acupuncture treatment with manual and/or electrical stimulation will be provided by qualified Korean medicine doctors. All patients will receive additional ED management at the ED physician's discretion and based on each patient's response to the allocated intervention. The primary outcome will be pain reduction measured at discharge from the ED by an unblinded assessor. Adverse events in both groups will be documented. Other outcomes will include the patient-reported overall improvement, disability due to neck pain (only for neck-pain patients), the treatment response rate, the use of other healthcare resources and the patients' perceived effectiveness of the acupuncture treatment. A follow-up telephone interview will be conducted by a blinded assessor 72±12 h after ED discharge.Ethics And DisseminationWritten informed consent will be obtained from all participants. The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). The results of this study will guide a full-scale randomised trial of acupuncture in an ED context.Trial Registration NumberClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02013908.Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…