The Use of Multiple Primary Outcomes in Randomized Controlled Trials of Chinese Herbal Medicine

Table 3

Disease classification (ICD-10) of RCTs reporting primary outcomes and multiple primary outcomes.

Disease classification (ICD-10)	No. of RCTs	No. of RCTs that reported primary outcome	No. of RCTs that adopted multiple primary outcomes
Certain infectious and parasitic diseases	8	2 (25.0%)	1 (50.0%)
Neoplasms	19	9 (47.4%)	1 (11.1%)
Endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases	22	14 (63.6%)	5 (35.7%)
Mental and behavioural disorders	12	10 (83.3%)	6 (60.0%)
Diseases of the nervous system	14	6 (42.9%)	4 (66.7%)
Diseases of the circulatory system	36	22 (61.1%)	6 (27.3%)
Diseases of the respiratory system	21	17 (80.9%)	5 (29.4%)
Diseases of the digestive system	27	12 (44.4%)	3 (25.0%)
Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue	8	6 (75.0%)	1 (16.7%)
Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue	15	10 (66.7%)	3 (30.0%)
Diseases of the genitourinary system	28	16 (57.1%)	5 (31.2%)
Symptoms, signs, and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified	8	6 (75.0%)	1 (16.7%)
Others	9	5 (55.5%)	1 (20.0%)
Total	227	135 (59.5%)	42 (31.1%)