Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38304734›Full record

ArticleGlobal advances in integrative medicine and health

Biofield Therapies: Guidelines for Reporting Clinical Trials.

Richard Hammerschlag, Meredith Sprengel, Ann L Baldwin

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Global advances in integrative medicine and health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
3.6field-weighted citation impact, top 9% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Richard HammerschlagConsciousness and Healing Initiative, San Diego, CA, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6244-3021
Meredith SprengelHuman Factors, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Soesterberg, Netherlands.
Ann L BaldwinDepartment of Physiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research · NLUniversity of Arizona · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

A set of guidelines has been developed to help improve reporting of clinical trials of biofield therapies. The need for enhanced transparency when reporting trials of this family of integrative health practices, eg, External Qigong, Healing Touch, Reiki and Therapeutic Touch, has been advocated in systematic reviews of these studies. The guidelines, called Biofield Therapies: Reporting Evidence Guidelines (BiFi REGs), supplement CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) 2010 by including details of the intervention protocols relevant to biofield therapy trials. BiFi REGs evolved through a draft document created by a core group, two rounds of a Delphi process with an international group of subject matter experts and two panels, meeting via Zoom, which included editors of complementary and integrative medicine journals. BiFi REGs comprises a 15-item Intervention checklist. Modifications of two other CONSORT topic areas are also proposed to enhance their relevance to trials of biofield therapies. Included for each item are an explanation, and exemplars of reporting from peer-reviewed published reports of biofield therapy trials. When used in conjunction with all other items from CONSORT 2010, we anticipate that BiFi REGs will expedite the peer review process for biofield therapy trials, facilitate attempts at trial replication and help to inform decision-making in the clinical practice of biofield therapies.

Indexed as

biofield therapiesbiofield therapy clinical trialsreporting guidelines

Identifiers

PMID38304734
PMCPMC10832441
OpenAlexW4391443418

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.