Moxibustion for primary dysmenorrhea: Protocol for a systematic review of randomized controlled trials

BACKGROUND: Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is one of the most common gynecological complaint among menstruating females. Acupuncture has been employed to relieve the pain-based symptoms and to avoid the side effects of conventional medication, especially, moxibustion has confirmed as an effective, convenient, and safe treatment for various types of menstrual pain. The purpose of this study is to systematically assess the effect and safety of moxibustion for treating PD. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The following databases will be searched from their inception to December 2019: PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Wan-Fang Databases, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Citation Information by National Institute of Informatics, Chinese Scientific Journal Database. Two reviewers will search these databases, select data and evaluate the quality of studies separately. The methodological quality will be measured by the Cochrane risk of bias tool. The primary outcome is the pain degree evaluation including visual analog scale, numerical visual scale, verbal rating scale, Cox retrospective symptom scale, or any other scale used to evaluate the level of pain. And the response rate involved overall reduction in symptoms. The adverse effects, quality of life will be assessed as secondary outcomes. Risk ratio for dichotomous data and mean differences with a 95% confidence interval for continuous data will be adopted to express the effect and safety of moxibustion for PD. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: PROSPERO CRD42019130141.