Trial reportChiropractic & manual therapies2024
Is blinding in studies of manual soft tissue mobilisation of the back possible? A feasibility randomised controlled trial with Swiss graduate students.
Trial report in Chiropractic & manual therapies, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05822947 (Blinding Assessment of Manual Therapy Interventions of the Back in Swiss Graduate Students), which is not on this map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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.
Blinding Assessment of Manual Therapy Interventions of the Back in Swiss Graduate Students: a Blinding Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Successful Blinding or Wishful Thinking? A Secondary Analysis of a Randomised Controlled Trial of Manual Therapy.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Trial
- 'Which treatment do you believe you received?' A randomised blinding feasibility trial of spinal manual therapy.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2025Trial
- Feasibility of blinding spinal manual therapy interventions among participants and outcome assessors: protocol for a blinding feasibility trial.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
STUDY
designSingle-centre, two-parallel group, methodological randomised controlled trial to assess blinding feasibility.
backgroundTrials of manual therapy interventions of the back face methodological challenges regarding blinding feasibility and success. We assessed the feasibility of blinding an active manual soft tissue mobilisation and control intervention of the back. We also assessed whether blinding is feasible among outcome assessors and explored factors influencing perceptions about intervention assignment.
methodsOn 7-8 November 2022, 24 participants were randomly allocated (1:1 ratio) to active or control manual interventions of the back. The active group (n = 11) received soft tissue mobilisation of the lumbar spine. The control group (n = 13) received light touch over the thoracic region with deep breathing exercises. The primary outcome was blinding of participants immediately after a one-time intervention session, as measured by the Bang blinding index (Bang BI). Bang BI ranges from -1 (complete opposite perceptions of intervention received) to 1 (complete correct perceptions), with 0 indicating 'random guessing'-balanced 'active' and 'control' perceptions within an intervention arm. Secondary outcomes included blinding of outcome assessors and factors influencing perceptions about intervention assignment among both participants and outcome assessors, explored via thematic analysis.
results24 participants were analysed following an intention-to-treat approach. 55% of participants in the active manual soft tissue mobilisation group correctly perceived their group assignment beyond chance immediately after intervention (Bang BI: 0.55 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.25 to 0.84]), and 8% did so in the control group (0.08 [95% CI, -0.37 to 0.53]). Bang BIs in outcome assessors were 0.09 (-0.12 to 0.30) and -0.10 (-0.29 to 0.08) for active and control participants, respectively. Participants and outcome assessors reported varying factors related to their perceptions about intervention assignment.
conclusionsBlinding of participants allocated to an active soft tissue mobilisation of the back was not feasible in this methodological trial, whereas blinding of participants allocated to the control intervention and outcome assessors was adequate. Findings are limited due to imprecision and suboptimal generalisability to clinical settings. Careful thinking and consideration of blinding in manual therapy trials is warranted and needed.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05822947 (retrospectively registered).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.