Acupuncture for tension-type headache: An assessment of clinical reporting quality based on OCSI, STROBE statement and quality assessment for case series

Objective: To evaluate the quality of three type of literature, clinical randomized controlled trials(RCTs), case-control trials and case series trials, about acupuncture on tension-type headache. Methods: Carried out electronic retrieval on several databases, including CNKI, VIP, Wanfang, PubMed and Embase database, to widely collect target documents that published between 2001 and 2013. Then to evaluate the quality of these documents, according to the clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine principles and methods. Results: A total of 26 documents met the criteria. 13 of them were RCTs, 3 were case-control trials and 10 case series trials. The mean percent scores of these RCTs, case-control trials and case series trials were 35.3, 23.5 and 33.75 respectively. Conclusion: For the reports of acupuncture for tension-type headache, the overall quality RCTs, case-control trials and case series trials were low. It should be paid great attention to introduce international advanced writing specification, in order to provide more detailed and reliable scientific data for clinical practices.