A randomized controlled trial investigating feasibility, acceptability and effects of dry needling for provoked vestibulodynia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the feasibility, acceptability, and effects of dry needling in women with provoked vestibulodynia. Forty-six women diagnosed with provoked vestibulodynia were randomized to receive six weekly sessions of either real or sham dry needling (DN). Participants, investigators and data analysts were blinded. Feasibility outcomes (adherence to treatment, questionnaire completion and dropout rate) and side effects were measured throughout the study. Pain intensity during intercourse (0-10 numeric rating scale) was measured at baseline and posttreatment, and acceptability (questionnaire) was assessed at posttreatment. Women in the realDN group attended 99% of the planned treatment sessions, compared to 91% in the shamDN group. Additionally, 100% of the questionnaires were completed in the realDN group, compared to 93% in the shamDN group. All participants in the realDN group completed the study. In contrast, two participants in the shamDN group withdrew. For the main side effects, 96% of the participants in the realDN group and 52% in the shamDN group experienced muscle aches (p<.001). Moreover, 35% experienced autonomic reactions in the realDN group, while these were not observed in the shamDN group (p<.001). All participants reported high levels of acceptability across all dimensions, with no significant difference between groups. The realDN group showed a significant decrease in pain intensity compared to the shamDN group (mean difference between groups 2.4; 95%CI 1.4-3.3; p<.001). Our findings support the feasibility and acceptability of dry needling to treat women with provoked vestibulodynia and showed a significant effect in reducing pain. PERSPECTIVE: This article presents the results of a novel study examining the feasibility and acceptability of using dry needling to treat women suffering from provoked vestibulodynia and lays the groundwork to inform a future randomized controlled trial.
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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 | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.018 | 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".