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Archived Comments for: Eurythmy Therapy in clinical studies: a systematic literature review

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  1. Potentially misleading patient numbers in Table 2

    Harald Johan Hamre, Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology

    17 July 2009

    In Table 2 in this paper, five publications from the AMOS study [1-5] are listed. I am the first author of these publications and would like to point out the following:
    In the column "number of patients" 898, 97, 419, 233, and (34+28) patients, respectively, are listed for these five publications. Without further explanation, the reader might think that these are non-overlapping patient samples, which is not the case. The numbers are explained as follows: 898 patients started anthroposophic treatment (eurythmy therapy, art therapy, rhythmical massage therapy or anthroposophic medical therapy) [1] for depression (97 patients) [2], low back pain (34 patients + 28 control patients) [5] and other chronic indications. Of these 898 patients, 419 were referred to eurythmy therapy as primary treatment at study enrolment [3]. In addition, out of 233 patients [4] starting anthroposophic medical therapy as primary treatment at enrolment, 30 patients subsequently had eurythmy therapy as an add-on treatment ([4] p.4).
    In the column "duration of study" a duration of 4 years is listed for one publication [1], for which the observation period was 2 years.

    References
    1. Hamre HJ, Becker-Witt C, Glockmann A, Ziegler R, Willich SN, Kiene H. Anthroposophic therapies in chronic disease: The Anthroposophic Medicine Outcomes Study (AMOS). Eur J Med Res 2004; 9(7):351-360.
    2. Hamre HJ, Witt CM, Glockmann A, Ziegler R, Willich SN, Kiene H. Anthroposophic therapy for chronic depression: a four-year prospective cohort study. BMC Psychiatry 2006; 6:57.
    3. Hamre HJ, Witt CM, Glockmann A, Ziegler R, Willich SN, Kiene H. Eurythmy therapy in chronic disease: a four-year prospective cohort study. BMC Public Health 2007; 7:61.
    4. Hamre HJ, Witt CM, Glockmann A, Ziegler R, Willich SN, Kiene H. Anthroposophic medical therapy in chronic disease: a four-year prospective cohort study. BMC Complement Altern Med 2007; 7:10.
    5. Hamre HJ, Witt CM, Glockmann A, Wegscheider K, Ziegler R, Willich SN et al. Anthroposophic vs. conventional therapy for chronic low back pain: a prospective comparative study. Eur J Med Res 2007; 12(7):302-310.

    Competing interests

    None

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