title: Recommendations for acupuncture in clinical practice guidelines of the national guideline clearinghouse.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To organize the clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) related to acupuncture included in the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) to systematically summarize the diseases and disorders most commonly treated with acupuncture, the strength of recommendations for acupuncture and the quality of evidence.
  
  
  METHODS
  The NGC database was systematically searched for guidelines that included acupuncture as an intervention. Two independent reviewers studied the summaries and the full texts of the guidelines and included guidelines based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Thirty-nine guidelines were collected with 80 recommendations. The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II instrument was used to assess the quality of these guidelines.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 80 recommendations on acupuncture, 49 recommendations were clearly for acupuncture, 25 recommendations were against acupuncture and 6 recommendations did not indicate any clear recommendations, 37 recommendations were for painful diseases/disorders, and 12 recommendations were for non-painful diseases/disorders. Locomotor system disorders were the most common in the painful diseases/disorders category. Out of all the recommendations for acupuncture, most recommendations (87.76%) were weak in strength, and most of the evidence (40.84%) was of low quality.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In the National Guideline Clearinghouse, the recommendations for acupuncture focus on painful diseases/disorders. The recommendations in the guidelines are not high in strength, and most of the evidence is moderate or low in quality.
authors.affiliation: College of Acupuncture and Orthopedics, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan, 430061, China.|Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China. hongzhao2005@aliyun.com.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Acupuncture, Guang'anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Science, Beijing, 100053, China.
authors.forename: Si-Nuo
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Acupuncture, Guang'anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Science, Beijing, 100053, China.
authors.forename: Yu-Xiu
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
authors.forename: Ming-Juan
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Data Centre of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
authors.forename: Bao-Yan
authors.initials: BY
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D015670:Acupuncture Therapy / Q000009:adverse effects; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic
keywords: National Guideline Clearinghouse; acupuncture; clinical practice guidelines