Appendix: search strategies
1. Medline (Pubmed) (Search date: June 14, 2014) 1 Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation.af.
2 TENS.af.
3 knee.af.
4 osteoarthiritis.af.
5 1 or 2 or 3 or 4
6 (clinical trial or controlled clinical trial or randomized controlled trial).pt.
7 clinical trials as topic/ or controlled clinical trials as topic/ or randomized controlled trials as topic/
8 random*.ti,ab.
9 clinical trial*.ti,ab.
10 controlled trial*.ti,ab.
11 prospective studies/
12 registries/
13 registry.ti,ab.
14 registries.ti,ab.
15 6 or 7 or 8 or9 or 10 or 11 or 12 or 13 or 14 16 5 and 15
17 limit 16 to humans 18 limit 16 to animals 19 17 not 18
20 16 not 19
21 meta analysis.pt.
22 Meta-Analysis as Topic/
23 meta analy*.ti.
24 metaanaly*.ti.
25 21 or 22 or 23 or 24 26 5 and 25
27 limit 26 to humans 28 limit 26 to animals 29 27 not 28
30 26 not 28 31 20 not 30
32 remove duplicates from 31 33 remove duplicates from 30
2. Embase (Search date: June 18, 2014)
#15 #14 AND 'human'/de
#14 #5 AND #13
#13 #6 OR #7 OR #8 OR #9 OR #10 OR #11 OR #12
#12 'registries'/exp
#11 database*
#10 'control group'/exp
#9 'comparison group'
#8 'prospective studies'/exp
#7 random*
#6 'clinical trial'/exp OR 'controlled clinical trial'/exp OR 'randomized controlled trial'/exp
#5 #1 OR #2 OR #3 OR #4
#4 ' osteoarthiritis '/exp
#3 ' knee '/exp
#2 ' TENS '/exp
#1 ' Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation '/exp
3. Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Issue 6 of 12, June. 2014)
#1 Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation.af.
#2 TENS.af.
#3 knee.af.
#4 osteoarthiritis.af.
#5 #1 or #2 or #3 or #4
4. ClinicalTrials.gov (Search date: June 22, 2014)
Completed | Studies With Results | Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation OR TENS OR knee OR osteoarthritis