3.4.3. Deqi (Needle Sensation)
82 studies [10, 15, 16, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41–47, 50, 54, 56, 57, 64, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75–77, 80, 87, 89–91, 93–96, 98–101, 103, 105–111, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120–124, 127, 130, 133, 135–138, 140, 144, 146, 148, 153, 157, 158, 166–168, 172, 174–176] required Deqi (needle sensation) during acupuncture stimulation.
56 studies [10, 14–18, 28, 35, 38, 42, 43, 50, 53, 55, 57, 58, 61, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 73, 75–77, 87, 89–91, 93–96, 99–101, 103, 104, 106–111, 115, 117, 120, 124, 127–130, 140, 166, 169] have evaluated needle sensation after acupuncture stimulation. The 10-point Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the Massachusetts General Hospital Acupuncture Sensation Scale (MASS), the Subject Acupuncture Sensation Scale (SASS), the 6-point Likert scale, the Park questionnaire, the Psychophysical Rating of Needling Sensation, and the Needle Sensation Questionnaire (NSQ) were used to evaluate the needle sensation (Figure 4).