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Evidence for the use of complementary and alternative medicines during fertility treatment: a scoping review

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, May 2018
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (88th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (95th percentile)

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24 X users
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2 Facebook pages
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2 Google+ users

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105 Mendeley
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Title
Evidence for the use of complementary and alternative medicines during fertility treatment: a scoping review
Published in
BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, May 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12906-018-2224-7
Pubmed ID
Authors

Skye A. Miner, Stephanie Robins, Yu Jia Zhu, Kathelijne Keeren, Vivian Gu, Suzanne C. Read, Phyllis Zelkowitz

Abstract

Complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) are sometimes used by individuals who desire to improve the outcomes of their fertility treatment and/or mental health during fertility treatment. However, there is little comprehensive information available that analyzes various CAM methods across treatment outcomes and includes information that is published in languages other than English. This scoping review examines the evidence for 12 different CAM methods used to improve female and male fertility outcomes as well as their association with improving mental health outcomes during fertility treatment. Using predefined key words, online medical databases were searched for articles (n = 270). After exclusion criteria were applied, 148 articles were analyzed in terms of their level of evidence and the potential for methodological and author bias. Surveying the literature on a range of techniques, this scoping review finds a lack of high quality evidence that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) improves fertility or mental health outcomes for men or women. Acupuncture has the highest level of evidence for its use in improving male and female fertility outcomes although this evidence is inconclusive. Overall, the quality of the evidence across CAM methods was poor not only because of the use of research designs that do not yield conclusive results, but also because results were contradictory. There is a need for more research using strong methods such as randomized controlled trials to determine the effectiveness of CAM in relation to fertility treatment, and to help physicians and patients make evidence-based decisions about CAM use during fertility treatment.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 24 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 105 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 105 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 16 15%
Student > Bachelor 15 14%
Other 7 7%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 6%
Other 18 17%
Unknown 36 34%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 23 22%
Nursing and Health Professions 22 21%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 6 6%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3 3%
Social Sciences 2 2%
Other 10 10%
Unknown 39 37%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 20. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 September 2018.
All research outputs
#1,856,299
of 25,113,446 outputs
Outputs from BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies
#317
of 3,928 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#38,729
of 333,412 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies
#5
of 82 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,113,446 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,928 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 333,412 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 82 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.