2.1. Statistical analysis
SPSS Statistics (v.15.0; SPSS
Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used to perform statistical analyses.
Numerical data were presented as means ± standard deviation and medians
(interquartile range). Frequency data were presented as n and %.
The normal distribution of data was determined by the
Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. The Mann–Whitney U test and Studentt test were used to analyze comparisons between the two groups
for numerical data. Homogeneity of the variance was tested using the
Levene test. The mean and median differences were presented in a 95%
confidence interval. The study was planned as a superiority trial, and
all the analyses were performed according to the principle of intention
to treat. All the hypotheses were constructed as two tailed, and an
alpha critical value of 0.05 was accepted as significant. For this
study, the sample size was calculated using the G*power
software(v.3.1).In a similar study conducted earlier, it was found that
the average VAS scores for pre- and posttreatment were 82.7 and 36.3,
respectively, achieving the effect size of greater than one12. In this study, we aimed to reach at least 45
people in each group and 90 people in total in order to obtain a
moderate effect size (d =0.50) by predicting a smaller effect
size.