Is Deqi an Indicator of Clinical Efficacy of Acupuncture? A Systematic Review

Table 5

Summary of the findings table for the evidence of the predicative value of natural Deqi for clinical efficacy.

Natural AWD compared with natural AOD for primary hypertension
Outcomes	Illustrative comparative risks (95% CI)		No. of participants (studies)	Quality of the evidence (grade)
	Natural AOD	Natural AWD
Blood pressure (SP); Scale from 0 to 200	The mean systolic blood pressure in the control groups was 152.225 mmHg	The mean systolic blood pressure in the intervention group was 15.88 mmHg lower (16.34 to 15.42 mmHg lower)	183; (1 study)	⊕⊝⊝⊝; very low^1,2,3,4
Blood pressure (DP); Scale from 0 to 200	The mean diastolic blood pressure in the control groups was 93.093 mmHg	The mean diastolic blood pressure in the intervention group was 6.42 mmHg lower (6.74 to 6.10 mmHg lower)	183; (1 study)	⊕⊝⊝⊝; very low^1,2,3

1This single cohort study has appropriate eligibility criteria, but it suffers from subjective measurement of exposure (patient-reported Deqi sensation) and very short treatment course (one session and no followup).
²Very narrow CI. Confidence interval < 1/10 effect size.
³A single study is very likely to be biased.
⁴It was observed that the mean difference of blood pressure was 15.88 lower in AWD group compared with AOD group. The effect size is large.