Effectiveness of Acupuncture and Acupuncture-like Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (ACUTENS) in treating primary dysmenorrhea- A randomised controlled trial (RCT)

Abstract

Objectives: the purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of acupuncture and study to acupuncture-like transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation in treating primary dysmenorrhea Methods: Subjects: Eligible women were aged 11–30 years with a diagnosis of primary dysmenorrhea. Twelve subjects each were randomized to control, acupuncture and ACUTENS groups. All subjects completed two pain questionnaires (Pain Rating Index (PRI) of McGill Pain Questionnaire and Visual Analogue Scale) before treatment; immediately post treatment; 30, 60, 120 post-treatment and the next morning upon awakening. The data were treated as means and standard deviation analyzed with one way analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc analysis test. Results: The mean pretreatment PRI values for the control (29.33+ 2.8), acupuncture (29.17+ 2.4), and ACUTENS (29.28 +2.6) groups did not show statistical significant difference (F= .016, P=0.985). However, a decline in the mean PRI values for the acupuncture (14.42+ 2.49) and ACUTENS (13.83 +3.13) groups were recorded immediately post treatment which were also statistically significant (F= 87.30, P=0.00). The decline in the PRI and VAS scores recorded immediately post treatments were maintained at 30mins, 60mins 120 min post treatment and the next day in the acupuncture and ACUTENS groups. Similarly, the mean VAS values immediately post treatment for control (4.75+ 1.76), acupuncture (1.25+ 0.62) and ACUTENS (1.33 +0.65) showed statistical significant difference (F= 35.59, P=0.00). Post hoc analysis of the difference in PRI and VAS scores, between Acupuncture and ACUTENS groups did not show statistically significant difference at any point of data collection (P > 0.05). The overall percentage improvements in PRI scores were 10.41%, 50.23% and 52.26% for the control, acupuncture and ACUTENS groups respectively. Similarly, the overall improvement in VAS scores were 8.89%, 74.58% and 75.56% for the control, acupuncture and ACUTENS groups respectively. Conclusion: The outcome of this study showed that acupuncture and low frequency and high intensity TENS/ acupuncture like TENS treatment could be effective in treating pain due to primary dysmenorhea. Findings from this study also showed that pain relief was approximately the same for the acupuncture and the ACUTENS groups over time.