A Randomized, Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Pilot Study to Investigate the Effectiveness of a Static Magnet to Relieve Dysmenorrhea
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that a specially designed, static magnet of 2700 gauss, attached over the pelvic area, could relieve menstrual pain. DESIGN: This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, postal questionnaire study. SETTING: The study was conducted in a primary care, single center. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty-five (65) women (mean age 29.1 +/- 1.52 years) were recruited from an advertisement in a London newspaper. The entry criterion was regular dysmenorrhea. The exclusion criterion was known secondary dysmenorrhea. Of the 65 women who were enrolled, 35 completed the study. INTERVENTIONS: A questionnaire-based assessment was completed by each subject and checked by telephone before and after random allocation to use of either the static magnet device (2700 gauss) or an identical, weaker magnetic placebo device (140 gauss). Assessment was made by telephone before and after a complete menstrual cycle. None of the participants was examined or seen face-to-face. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The main outcome measures were level of pain, using the McGill Pain and Visual Analogue Scales, and ratings of associated symptoms such as irritability, restriction of usual activities, and painkiller consumption. RESULTS: There was a significant reduction (p < 0.02) in pain in the magnet group compared to the placebo group. Pain score differences (McGill pain score before-pain score after use of device) were -17 (-53, 13) (median and interquartile ranges) in the magnet group and -5.0 (-29, 27) in the placebo group. The 95% Mann-Whitney confidence intervals for the median difference between the magnet and placebo groups (magnet-placebo) were -53.0 to 23.38. A reduction in irritability symptoms in the magnet group approached statistical significance (p = 0.056). CONCLUSIONS: Despite the small number of participants, the level of significance reached in the reduction of pain merits reporting. This is a pilot study to a much larger study of the same device as an analgesic in women with primary dysmenorrhea.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".