Reviewer's report
Title:Acupuncture for irritable bowel syndrome: primary care based pragmatic
randomised controlled trial
Version: 1Date:27 July 2012
Reviewer: Klaus Linde
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript reports a pragmatic randomized trial investigating short- and
long-term effects of usual case alone vs. usual care plus acupuncture in patients
with irrtable bowel syndrome. The manuscript is clearly written. The trial is well
planned, a pilot study had been done, the protocol of the definitive trial has been
published, and the study seems to be performed and analyzed adequately. The
clear strenghts of the trial are the long follow-up and study conditions close to
reality. Inevitably, the study has the usual problems of pragmatic trials of
non-pharmacological trials (no blinding, unclear contribution of specific and
non-specific effects).
Minor essential revision
- My only major comment regards the discussion of the clinical relevance of the
observed differences. These are small to moderate for the main outcome
measure and even smaller for secondary outcomes. Given the risk of reporting
bias (which is discussed) I think the authors should discuss the issue of clinical
relevance of the findings in more detail
Discretionary Revisions
- Introduction, end of first parapragh: In the first moment I was a bit surprised on
the focus of two trials on non-specific effects. In its brevity it can be confusing to
readers. Furthermore, I would not say the Schnieder trials focuses on
non-specific effects.
- Statistical analysis, first phrase on sample size calculation: to be reproducible
the assumed standard deviation should be added.
- Page 9, paragraph 1: some consider a Cohen’s d < 0.4 as small. Maybe it
would be more correct to say small to moderate.
- Page 9, first phrase paragraph 2: the phrase does not seem fully correct
- Figure 2: could confidence intervals be added? Seeing only the means is not
very informative.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Acupuncture for irritable bowel syndrome: primary care based pragmatic
randomised controlled trial
Version: 1Date:27 July 2012
Reviewer: Klaus Linde
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript reports a pragmatic randomized trial investigating short- and
long-term effects of usual case alone vs. usual care plus acupuncture in patients
with irrtable bowel syndrome. The manuscript is clearly written. The trial is well
planned, a pilot study had been done, the protocol of the definitive trial has been
published, and the study seems to be performed and analyzed adequately. The
clear strenghts of the trial are the long follow-up and study conditions close to
reality. Inevitably, the study has the usual problems of pragmatic trials of
non-pharmacological trials (no blinding, unclear contribution of specific and
non-specific effects).
Minor essential revision
- My only major comment regards the discussion of the clinical relevance of the
observed differences. These are small to moderate for the main outcome
measure and even smaller for secondary outcomes. Given the risk of reporting
bias (which is discussed) I think the authors should discuss the issue of clinical
relevance of the findings in more detail
Discretionary Revisions
- Introduction, end of first parapragh: In the first moment I was a bit surprised on
the focus of two trials on non-specific effects. In its brevity it can be confusing to
readers. Furthermore, I would not say the Schnieder trials focuses on
non-specific effects.
- Statistical analysis, first phrase on sample size calculation: to be reproducible
the assumed standard deviation should be added.
- Page 9, paragraph 1: some consider a Cohen’s d < 0.4 as small. Maybe it
would be more correct to say small to moderate.
- Page 9, first phrase paragraph 2: the phrase does not seem fully correct
- Figure 2: could confidence intervals be added? Seeing only the means is not
very informative.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Acupuncture for irritable bowel syndrome: primary care based pragmatic
randomised controlled trial
Version: 1Date:27 July 2012
Reviewer: Klaus Linde
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript reports a pragmatic randomized trial investigating short- and
long-term effects of usual case alone vs. usual care plus acupuncture in patients
with irrtable bowel syndrome. The manuscript is clearly written. The trial is well
planned, a pilot study had been done, the protocol of the definitive trial has been
published, and the study seems to be performed and analyzed adequately. The
clear strenghts of the trial are the long follow-up and study conditions close to
reality. Inevitably, the study has the usual problems of pragmatic trials of
non-pharmacological trials (no blinding, unclear contribution of specific and
non-specific effects).
Minor essential revision
- My only major comment regards the discussion of the clinical relevance of the
observed differences. These are small to moderate for the main outcome
measure and even smaller for secondary outcomes. Given the risk of reporting
bias (which is discussed) I think the authors should discuss the issue of clinical
relevance of the findings in more detail
Discretionary Revisions
- Introduction, end of first parapragh: In the first moment I was a bit surprised on
the focus of two trials on non-specific effects. In its brevity it can be confusing to
readers. Furthermore, I would not say the Schnieder trials focuses on
non-specific effects.
- Statistical analysis, first phrase on sample size calculation: to be reproducible
the assumed standard deviation should be added.
- Page 9, paragraph 1: some consider a Cohen’s d < 0.4 as small. Maybe it
would be more correct to say small to moderate.
- Page 9, first phrase paragraph 2: the phrase does not seem fully correct
- Figure 2: could confidence intervals be added? Seeing only the means is not
very informative.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
assistant