Acupuncture for chronic headache in primary care: large, pragmatic, randomised trial

Abstract

Objective: To determine the effects of a policy of "use acupuncture" on headache, health status, days off sick, and use of resources in patients with chronic headache compared with a policy of "avoid acupuncture."

Design: Randomised, controlled trial.

Setting: General practices in England and Wales.

Participants: 401 patients with chronic headache, predominantly migraine. Interventions Patients were randomly allocated to receive up to 12 acupuncture treatments over three months or to a control intervention offering usual care.

Main outcome measures: Headache score, SF-36 health status, and use of medication were assessed at baseline, three, and 12 months. Use of resources was assessed every three months.

Results: Headache score at 12 months, the primary end point, was lower in the acupuncture group (16.2, SD 13.7, n = 161, 34% reduction from baseline) than in controls (22.3, SD 17.0, n = 140, 16% reduction from baseline). The adjusted difference between means is 4.6 (95% confidence interval 2.2 to 7.0; P = 0.0002). This result is robust to sensitivity analysis incorporating imputation for missing data. Patients in the acupuncture group experienced the equivalent of 22 fewer days of headache per year (8 to 38). SF-36 data favoured acupuncture, although differences reached significance only for physical role functioning, energy, and change in health. Compared with controls, patients randomised to acupuncture used 15% less medication (P = 0.02), made 25% fewer visits to general practitioners (P = 0.10), and took 15% fewer days off sick (P = 0.2).

Conclusions: Acupuncture leads to persisting, clinically relevant benefits for primary care patients with chronic headache, particularly migraine. Expansion of NHS acupuncture services should be considered.

Fig 1

Flow of participants through the trial.

Fig 2

Frequency of headache at baseline and after treatment. Red dots are actual values for patients in the acupuncture group; blue squares are for controls. The straight line represents no change: observations above the line improved. The curved lines are regression lines (upper red line for acupuncture, lower blue line for controls) that can be used as predictions. Some outliers have been removed