Electroacupuncture for Women with Chronic Severe Functional Constipation: Subgroup Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Table 1

Baseline characteristics of the randomized participants.

Characteristics	EA (n=415)	SA (n=407)
Age, mean (SD), y	45.60 (15.69)	45.49 (15.11)
Participants with age <65 y	371 (89.40)	369 (90.66)
Participants with age ≥65 y	44 (10.60)	38 (9.34)
Race
Han	401 (96.63)	396 (97.30)
Minorities	14 (3.37)	11(2.70)
BMI, mean (SD), kg/m^2	22.12 (3.04)	22.49 (3.11)
Constipation duration, mean (SD), mo.	135.80 (122.26)	145.00 (130.29)
Coexisting illness	83 (20.00)	77 (18.92)
Others	55 (13.25)	56 (13.76)
Hypertension	28 (6.75)	21 (5.16)
Digestive system diseases	6 (1.45)	10 (2.46)
Diabetes mellitus	8 (1.93)	3 (0.74)
CSBMs/week, mean (SD)	0.40 (0.63)	0.40 (0.62)
SBMs/week, mean (SD)	1.89 (1.32)	2.03 (1.41)
Mean stool consistency of SBMs, mean	2.58 (1.13)	2.59 (1.10)
Mean straining of SBMs, mean	1.65 (0.66)	1.69 (0.61)
PAC-QOL score, mean (SD)	2.75 (0.69)	2.69 (0.69)
Patients using other treatments
Rescue medicine	126 (30.36%)	103 (25.30%)
Others	14 (3.37%)	13 (3.19%)
Weekly frequency of other treatments used, median (IQR) ^†
Rescue medicine	1.25 (0.50-2.00)	1.00 (1.00-2.00)
Others	1.25 (0.50-4.00)	1.00 (0.50-3.00)

Data are n (%) unless otherwise stated.
Abbreviations: EA, electro-acupuncture; SA, sham acupuncture; CSBMs, complete spontaneous bowel movements; SBMs, spontaneous bowel movements; BMI, body mass index; PAC-QOL, Patient Assessment of Constipation Quality of Life Questionnaire; SD, standard deviation; IQR, interquartile range. Coexisting illness with different types occurring in a single participant were defined as independent coexisting illness.
stool consistency and straining were evaluated based on the stools from spontaneous bowel movements. We could not obtain data from participants who had no SBMs during the baseline period. These two outcomes were both missing on 37 participants in the EA group and 35 in the SA group at baseline. Therefore, data for these two outcomes were from 378 participants in the EA group and 372 in the SA group.
^† The weekly frequency of other treatments was assessed in the patients who used other treatments for constipation.