Acupuncture for ‘frequent attenders’ with medically unexplained symptoms

The lively presentational style of the revamped Journal is welcome, and the new concise and accessible approach to research will certainly help time-pressed clinicians. However, there is an uncomfortable tension between the need to present data to busy practitioners in an easily digestible format and gross-oversimplification that risks the misinterpretation of data. The Editor seems to have fallen into this trap with Paterson et al's study on acupuncture with medically unexplained symptoms.1

The study is riddled with bias in a number of key areas including participant selection and the unblinded intervention. The construction of the study lends itself to a positive result and there is little value in conducting acupuncture studies without adjusting for this bias by using some kind of sham treatment. The authors do discuss the ‘black-box’ effect of the intervention and this does raise the unfortunate, but in this case appropriate, image of a terrible crash that needs careful post-disaster investigation. Even given the obvious bias, the effect was small and the graphs presented in the full-length article,1 sadly missing in the print version, made this abundantly clear.

The BJGP has done a disservice to the communication of science, and the uncritical message, propagated through the RCGP, of the effectiveness of acupuncture in this study simply doesn't stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. Thanks to the BJGP press release, the national print media picked up on the story and ran it uncritically in the true spirit of modern ‘churnalism’.2 Pragmatic studies need pragmatic interpretation and shouldn't develop into publicity campaigns that can be boiled down to 140 characters. Ironically, it is subsequently through Twitter and the blogosphere that the damage to the reputation of the BJGP has been done.3 I recognise the need to make research palatable but the headline front-cover conclusion printed by the BJGP is ill-judged and owes more to a tabloid approach to journalism than any sober consideration of the true nature of the findings in this study.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2011