Table 7 List of recommendations for future studies on manipulation-induced hypoalgesia

1.

Use CONSORT guidelines to improve study quality and reporting.

2.

Consider measuring other types of QST apart from PPT, e.g. temporal summation.

3.

Measure QST in a variety of locations, e.g. local, regional, remote.

4.

To address the significant between-study heterogeneity, consider choosing commonly used QST locations, standard QST protocols, and commonly used intervention protocols.

5.

Consult the following article and corrigendum [43, 44] for appropriate sample size estimations for PPT.

6.

Consider including a sham group, and ensure sham interventions are appropriate and believable, and assess the effectiveness of blinding.

7.

Consider comparing changes in QST against clinically relevant baseline features or treatment outcomes.

8.

Consider assessing psychosocial variables at baseline for use as modifiers/confounding variables, if appropriate based on statistical analysis.