8. Discussion
This revised STRICTA Statement has been designed to help improve the reporting of interventions in clinical trials of acupuncture, with the intention that it will help authors of acupuncture trials provide readers with a clear, accurate and transparent account of their acupuncture protocols as well as their control and/or comparator procedures. In addition to revising the STRICTA checklist, we have improved the explanations of each item and provided examples of good reporting. To enhance awareness, endorsement and adherence, the revised STRICTA Statement has been developed as an extension to CONSORT. Authors of clinical trials of acupuncture should use the STRICTA recommendations for the acupuncture intervention (Item 5 in the CONSORT 2010 Statement) in conjunction with the other 25 items of the checklist in the main CONSORT guidelines [10,11]. The extension to CONSORT for non-pharmacological interventions is also highly relevant to acupuncture trials [14,15]. There are other extensions to CONSORT that may be relevant, depending on the type of trial design, including extensions for cluster trials, equivalence and non-inferiority trials, and pragmatic trials, and the reporting of abstracts and of harms (e.g. adverse events) associated with the intervention.
