RESEARCH ARTICLE Sham Acupressure Controls Used in Randomized Controlled Trials: A Systematic Review and Critique

Objectives To explore the commonly utilized sham acupressure procedures in existing acupressure tri-als, and to assess whether different types of sham interventions yield different therapeutic outcomes, and, as far as possible, to identify directions for the future development of an adequate sham acupressure method. Methods Randomized controlled trials comparing true acupressure with sham interventions were included. Thirteen electronic databases were adopted to locate relevant studies from incep-tion to July 3, 2014. Meanwhile, eight Chinese journals on complementary and alternative medicine were manually searched to locate eligible articles. In addition, eligible studies listed in the reference lists of the included papers and other related systematic reviews on acupressure were also screened to further search any potentially eligible trials. Methodolog-ical quality of the included studies was evaluated using the risk of bias assessment tool developed by the Cochrane Back Review Group. Descriptive analysis was adopted to sum