Acupuncture for Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Review Protocol

BACKGROUND: Cerebral palsy (CP), a childhood disease of high morbidity and serious harmfulness, has no effective therapies to completely relieve the associated pain. Acupuncture has been used widely in China to alleviate several CP symptoms, such as pain and motion disorders, despite the deficiency of high-quality evidence related to this practice. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this systematic review protocol is to assess the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for the treatment of children with CP. METHODS: The following electronic databases will be searched: Cochrane Library, Web of Science, EBASE, Springer, World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan-fang database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, and other sources. All published randomized controlled trials from inception to December 2016 will be included. RevMan V.5.3 software will be implemented for the assessment of bias risk, data synthesis, subgroup analysis, and meta-analyses if inclusion conditions are met. Individuals recruited into the trials will include children with all types of CP, and these individuals will be involved as coresearchers to develop and evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for the treatment of children with CP. Due to language barriers, only English and Chinese articles will be retrieved. RESULTS: The systematic review will synthesize the available knowledge surrounding acupuncture for children with CP. The findings will be synthesized to determine the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for children with CP. CONCLUSIONS: The review has not been completed. This protocol presents a proper method to implement the systematic review, and ensures transparency for the completed review. Findings from the systematic review will be disseminated in a peer-reviewed journal and results will be presented at relevant conferences. The data of individual patients will not be included, so ethical approval is not required. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO registration number: CRD42016038275, http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.asp?ID=CRD42016038275 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation/6nGxoJrqm