A Systematic Appraisal of Conflicts of Interest and Researcher Allegiance in Clinical Studies of Dry Needling for Musculoskeletal Pain Disorders.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency and methods of conflicts of interest (COI) reporting in published dry needling (DN) studies and to determine the frequency of researcher allegiance (RA).

Methods: A pragmatic systematic search was undertaken to identify DN studies that were included in systematic reviews. Information regarding COI and RA were extracted from the full text of the published DN reports, and study authors were sent a survey inquiring about the presence of RA.