Reporting quality of systematic reviews with moxibustion

Chinese Medicine

Table 5 Reporting quality of 14 items of Moxibustion-related information (n = 97)

Category	Item	Description	Yes, n (%)
Title	Title	1. Reported the specific name of studied moxibustion	25 (25.8)
Title	Title	2. CM syndrome(s) was included	0 (0)
Introduction	Rationale	3. CM-related theory	25 (25.8)
Methods	Eligibility criteria for participants	4. Included CM syndrome diagnosis criteria	6 (6.2)
Methods	Eligibility criteria for outcomes	5. Included CM-related outcome(s)	3 (3.1)
Results	Study characteristics	6. Reported treatment environment	5 (5.2)
		7. Reported the materials and techniques used for moxibustion	59 (60.8)
		8. Reported the types of moxibustion	30 (30.9)
		9. Reported the selection of acupoints and meridians	32 (33.0)
		10. Reported the number and frequency of the moxibustion	27 (27.8)
		11. Reported the duration of the moxibustion	42 (43.3)
		12. Reported the safety assessment or adverse effects (if exist) of the moxibustion	30 (30.9)
	Synthesis of results	13. Considered moxibustion-specific characteristics in the subgroup analysis	27 (27.8)
	Synthesis of results	14. Meta-analyses were properly conducted^a	41 (44.6)

^aThe criteria of “properly conducted” was according to the homogeneity of the PICO information, especially the reporting quality of the details of moxibustion interventions and additional analyses provided as above. For example, if some of the moxibustion details were not reported, it is impossible to assess whether the meta-analyses in the SRs were properly conducted or not. In addition, of 97 included SRs, 92 had meta-analysis (as presented in Table 2). Thus, to calculate the proportion of this item, the percentage of records was based on the total number of 92. For example, 44.6% = 41/92

ISSN: 1749-8546