Individual vs. Group Delivery of Acupuncture Therapy for Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain in Urban Primary Care—a Randomized Trial
McKee MD, Nielsen A, Anderson B, Chuang E, Connolly M, Gao Q, Gil EN, Lechuga C, Kim M, Naqvi H, Kligler B · Journal of General Internal Medicine · 2020 February 19
DOI 10.1007/s11606-019-05583-6
Objective
We compared the effectiveness of group versus individual acupuncture for pain and function among ethnically diverse, low-income primary care patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.
Conclusions
The results demonstrate that Individual and Group Acupuncture can be offered safely in the community health center setting. Acceptability to patients and clinicians is very high, and that a substantial proportion of patients with chronic pain will have clinically significant improvement in both pain and overall physical health. Based on these results, Group Acupuncture therapy should be offered as part of pain care to urban community in the primary care setting.
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Insights
Both individual and group acupuncture therapy delivered in primary care settings reduced chronic pain and improved physical function at 12 weeks.
Our results demonstrate that individual and group acupuncture can be offered safely in the community health center setting, that acceptability to patients and clinicians is very high, and that a substantial proportion of patients with chronic pain will have clinically significant improvement in both pain and overall physical health. Based on these results, acupuncture therapy should be offered as part of pain care to underserved populations in the primary care setting. Non-inferiority of group treatment was not demonstrated, suggesting that further research is needed on the optimal strategy for delivering group acupuncture in this context to consider it as effective as individual treatment.
