A study on the effectiveness of pharmacopuncture for chronic neck pain: A protocol for a pragmatic randomized controlled trial

This study is a 2-armed, parallel, multi-center RCT. The participants will be randomly assigned to pharmacopuncture or physical therapy group to receive their respective 8-session treatments for 4 weeks. The primary outcome is the visual analogue scale of neck pain. Secondary outcomes is the Northwick Park questionnaire, visual analogue scale of radiating arm pain, numeric rating scale of the neck and arm bothersomeness, neck disability index, patient global impression of change, short form-12 health survey version 2, and 5-level EuroQol-5 dimension. Discussion: This is a protocol for a pragmatic RCT that would attempt to present evidence conducive to clinical decision or policy-making by investigating the effectiveness of pharmacopuncture therapy, a widely used approach in Korean medicine clinical practice, in comparison to the standard therapy.
Source: Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Tags: Research Article: Study Protocol Clinical Trial Source Type: research