Trial reportPloS one2022
Do patients' pre-treatment expectations about acupuncture effectiveness predict treatment outcome in patients with chronic low back pain? A secondary analysis of data from a randomised controlled clinical trial.
Trial report in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Expectancy Effect of Acupuncture on Cancer-Related Outcomes: A Systematic Review.Oncology nursing forum · 2024Pooled it
- Acupuncture for chemotherapy-induced dysgeusia (AcuDysg): a randomized controlled trial.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Therapeutic mechanisms of acupuncture therapy for acute pain in the emergency department.Integrative medicine research · 2026Review
- Article
- Differential placebo effect of sham acupuncture for chronic pain: a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2025Article
- Baseline predictors of responders to auricular point acupressure in chronic low back pain.Clinical traditional medicine and pharmacology · 2025Article
- Associations of Treatment Outcome Expectations and Pain Sensitivity after Cervical Spine Manipulation in Patients with Chronic Non-Specific Neck Pain: A Cohort Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- How does pretreatment expectancy influence pain outcomes with electroacupuncture and battlefield acupuncture in cancer survivors?: Pretreatment expectancy and pain reduction by acupuncture.Integrative medicine research · 2024Article
- The relevance of outcome expectations in group hypnosis for stress reduction: a secondary analysis of a multicenter randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Temporal summation does not predict the acupuncture response in patients with chronic non-specific low back pain.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Article
- Article
- Comparison of Swiss versus Standard Acupuncture in Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain. A Study Protocol for a Randomized, Controlled, Single-Blind, Parallel Trial.Journal of pain research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThis secondary analysis of a randomised controlled patient-blinded trial comparing effectiveness and side effect briefings in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) investigated the association between patients' pre-treatment expectations about minimal acupuncture treatment and pain intensity as outcome during and after the end of the treatment.
methodsChronic low back pain patients with a pain intensity of at least 4 on a numeric rating scale from 0 to 10 received eight sessions of minimal acupuncture treatment over 4 weeks. The primary outcome was change in pain intensity rated on a Numerical Rating Scale (NRS 0-10) from inclusion visit to treatment session 4 and to the end of the treatment. Patients' expectations about the effectiveness of acupuncture were assessed using the Expectation for Treatment Scale (ETS) before randomization. Linear regression was applied to investigate whether patients' pre-treatment expectations predicted changes in pain intensity during and after treatment.
resultsA total of 142 CLBP patients (40.1 ± 12.5 years; 65.5% female) were included in our analysis. Patients' pre-treatment expectations about acupuncture treatment were associated with changes in pain intensity after four sessions of minimal acupuncture treatment (b = -0.264, p = 0.002), but not after the end of the treatment. This association was found in females and males.
conclusionsOur results imply that higher pre-treatment expectations only lead to larger reductions in pain intensity in the initial phase of a treatment, with a similar magnitude for both females and males. As the treatment progresses in the second half of the treatment, adapted expectations or other non-specific effects might play a more important role in predicting treatment outcome.
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