Status, reporting completeness and methodological quality of pilot randomised controlled trials in acupuncture: protocol for a systematic review

INTRODUCTION: To date, there has been a lack of knowledge about the status, reporting completeness and methodological quality of pilot trials in the acupuncture field. Thus, this systematic review protocol aims to: (1) investigate publication trends and aspects of feasibility evaluated in acupuncture pilot trials; (2) identify the proportion of acupuncture pilot trials that lead to definitive trials and (3) assess the reporting completeness and methodological quality of pilot trials in acupuncture. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Studies of acupuncture pilot randomised controlled trials published from 2011 to 2021 will be retrieved in seven databases in January 2022, including PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database. The methodological quality and reporting completeness of all included studies will be assessed using the risk of bias 2.0 tool (RoB 2) and the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) extension to randomised pilot and feasibility trials, respectively. For the primary analysis, publication trends, aspects of feasibility and the proportion of pilot trials that lead to definitive trials will be analysed. A quantitative analysis of the methodological quality and reporting completeness of the included trials will be implemented by calculating the percentage of items reported in each domain of RoB 2 and CONSORT. The secondary analysis will adopt a regression analysis to identify factors associated with the reporting completeness. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval is not required for this study. This study is planned to be submitted to a peer-reviewed academic journal.