Acupuncture Treatment Of Low Back Pain Of The Comparison Of The Sci Abroad And Domestic Core Journals And Thinking

Acupuncture is an important part of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chinese cultural heritage. It encompasses the essence of the Chinese spirit, way of thinking and culture and agglomerate the vitality and creativity of the Chinese nation. Therefore, globalization of acupuncture has long been proposed and its researches have become more intensive and in-depth. SCI (Science Citation Index) is a database created by the Philadelphia Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), in which it is an internationally-recognized representative search tool and one of the six international renowned literature search engines. In China, SCI has even become one of the indicators for her strength in basic scientific research and technological development. In recent years, acupuncture analgesia research has received much attention domestically and internationally and low back pain is one of the illnesses associated with pain that researchers expressed much interest for research. Therefore, through investigating the quality and method of clinical research literatures published in foreign SCI journals with regard to the treatment of low back pain with acupuncture and through conducting a comparative research with clinical research literatures published in Chinese core domestic journals, we aimed to reveal the differences in emphasis and understanding in this field of study at home and abroad so as to grasp the dynamics of the development of international acupuncture research methodology; so as to reposition the academia of acupuncture and learn the strong points of others to offset one’s own weaknesses. In this study, we systematically sorted and summarized clinical research literatures published in foreign SCI journals and Chinese core domestic journals with regard to the treatment of low back pain with acupuncture, and attempted to conduct an objective analysis and evaluation on the differences of the knowledge towards low back pain by researchers at home and abroad, their differences in research interests and research designs on this subject.Methods:Using Web of Science and Pubmed databases, with "low back pain AND acupuncture" and other keywords as the topic of search, foreign English literature papers dated between2002and2012on prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial studies of acupuncture treatment of low back pain were retrieved. Using China Academic Journal Database CNKI (1953-2012), with "needle AND back" and other keywords as the topic of search, domestic Chinese literature papers from the core domestic journals (Zhongguo Zhenjiu, Shanghai Journal of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Journal of Clinical Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Acupuncture Research) dated between2002and2012on randomized controlled clinical trial studies of acupuncture treatment of low back pain were retrieved. Types of literature papers excluded:editorials, letters, meta-analysis, review articles, pre-experimental study of rules, case studies; animal experiments, observational studies, interventional trials, quantitative tests; acupuncture as a surgical therapy and postoperative analgesic adjuvant therapy; papers on acupotomy, hydroacupoint injection therapy. Foreign English literature papers and domestic Chinese literature papers that have met the inclusion criteria were included. With foreign and domestic literature papers as the two main classifications, statistical analysis were conducted on the journal distribution, periodical distribution, year distribution, object of research, direction of research, design of research. Hence, exploring the status and discussing the potential problems of acupuncture clinical research at home and abroad today.Result:With regard to differences in understanding of low back pain, foreign researchers mostly set the object of study as general concepts of "low back pain","chronic low back pain" or "acute low back pain" while the researchers at home set their object of study according to the criteria of Western medical diagnostic illnesses such as "prolapse of lumbar intervertebral disc","third lumbar transverse process syndrome" etc. With regard to differences in clinical research objectives, the range of study objectives was more extensive for foreign researches while more focus was placed on observation and evaluation of the efficacy of acupuncture treatment for low back pain in study objectives of local researches. With regard to differences in study protocol design, foreign researchers drew up their study protocol based on the CONSORT and STRICTA statement while inadequate attention was paid to scientific methodology in local researches.Conclusion:There existed differences in the understanding and definition of concepts and research methodology in the field of acupuncture research for the treatment of low back pain. The future of acupuncture clinical research should be based on the characteristics of traditional acupuncture and improved upon with the evidence-based medicine approach.