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Table 4 Discrepancies of treatment effects of Chinese versus non-Chinese population# in studies with a low risk of bias in each domain

From: The relationship of publication language, study population, risk of bias, and treatment effects in acupuncture related systematic reviews: a meta-epidemiologic study

ROB domain with low risk of bias

No. reviews

No. RCTs (Chinese# vs. non-Chinese population)

No. sample size (Chinese# vs. non-Chinese population)

ROR* and 95% CI

Random sequence generation

4

13 vs. 8

1885 vs. 529

0.23 [0.08, 0.65] *

Allocation concealment

2

3 vs. 4

1002 vs. 257

0.54 [0.15, 1.87]

Blinding of participants and personnel

2

4 vs. 22

410 vs. 2765

0.46 [0.26, 0.82] *

Blinding of outcome assessment

3

5 vs. 21

1193 vs. 2723

0.50 [0.28, 0.87] *

Incomplete outcome data

5

9 vs. 16

1505 vs. 1090

0.54 [0.32, 0.93] *

Selective reporting

1

3 vs. 4

279 vs. 315

0.44 [0.15, 1.26]

  1. # Studies addressing Chinese populations published in both Chinese or other languages were included. * ROR less than 1 implies that acupuncture is more effective in Chinese populations than in non-Chinese populations
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BMC Medical Research Methodology

ISSN: 1471-2288

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