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| | Items | Details |
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| (1) Acupuncture rationale | (1a) Style of acupuncture | Temporal three-needle therapy based on the rationale system of the meridian acupoint theory in Chinese traditional medicine, modern neurological theory, and anatomical rationale [10, 11] |
| (1b) Reason for the treatment provided, based on the historical context, literature sources, and/or consensus methods, with references where appropriate | Acupoints to be used in this study were temporal three-needle located at the projection area of the sensory area and the motor area on the temporal ear [11]. Based on many previous studies, temporal three-needle therapy is widely used for stroke treatment in China [11, 14–18] |
| (1c) Extent to which treatment was varied | Only the experimental group will receive temporal three-needle therapy |
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| (2) Details of needling | (2a) Number of needle insertions per subject per session | 3 |
| (2b) Names of points used | Temporal three-needle |
| (2c) Depth of insertion, based on a specified unit of measurement | 0.5 inches deep |
| (2d) Response sought | “De Qi” sensation |
| (2e) Needle stimulation | Manual operation |
| (2f) Needle retention time | 30 minutes |
| (2g) Needle type | Sterilized stainless-steel needle measuring 0.30 × 25 mm (Huanqiu, Suzhou Acupuncture & Moxibustion Appliance Co., Ltd, Jiangsu Province, China) |
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| (3) Treatment regimen | (3a) Numbers of treatment sessions | 10 sessions (2 consecutive weeks) |
| (3b) Frequency and duration of treatment sessions | 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week |
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| (4) Other components of treatment | (4a) Details of other interventions administered to the acupuncture group | All patients will receive basic drugs treatment and conventional rehabilitative treatments (including PT and OT) |
| (4b) Setting and context of treatment, including instructions to practitioners and information and explanations to patients | The study will be conducted in Shenzhen Nanshan district People’s Hospital, and all information will be provided to the patients |
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| (5) Practitioner background | (5) Description of participating acupuncturists | Acupuncturists after completing 5 years of Chinese medicine undergraduate course with more than 10 years of clinical experience will perform the temporal three-needle interventions |
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| (6) Control or comparator interventions | (6a) Rationale for the control or comparator in the context of the research question, with sources that justify this choice | MS6 will be selected as the comparator in the control group based on traditional Chinese medicine theory |
| (6b) Precise description of the control or comparator; if sham acupuncture or any other types of acupuncture-like control is used, provide details as for items 1 to 3 above | Based on previous studies [19, 22], MS6 will be mainly selected as the comparator for temporal three-needle therapy in motor dysfunction with stroke patients; in addition to the basic drug treatments and conventional rehabilitative treatment, only the control group will receive MS6 therapy; item 2 (details of needling) and item 3 (treatment regimen) are the same as the experimental group |
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