Abstract / Summary
Preprint, version 0.3 (29 September 2026). Not peer reviewed and not submitted to any journal. Scientific gate: YELLOW. The two instruments proposed here are an engineering and editorial proposal, graded E/J by their own scheme. No study has yet been reported using them, and no formal prior-art search has established that no equivalent instrument exists. Novelty has not been independently established. Abstract. Studies that apply electrical energy to tissue report what the operator set: a current, a voltage, a frequency, a session duration. Tissue responds to quantities that are rarely reported - the electric field at the target, current density, charge per phase, and how those evolve over the time constants of the structures they act on. Where only settings are recorded, a later reader cannot reconstruct what was delivered. This paper proposes two instruments for that problem: a minimum parameter reporting set for studies applying electrical energy to tissue, and an evidence classification for the claims such work generates, in a field where engineering specifications, patent language and biological assertions circulate together. The scale is taken from published secondary analyses rather than asserted. In an analysis of the features of 381 randomised trials of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, only 136 reports contained any statement about adverse events, and the authors conclude that previously published criteria for designing and reporting such studies were neglected. A companion appraisal of 169 reviews and 49 meta-analyses of the same intervention found that only three meta-analyses pooled sufficient data for confidence in an effect size, describing the result as a stagnation of evidence - while recommending, on the same data, that the intervention be considered a treatment option. An independent scoping review of 65 transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation studies found total intervention time missing in 20% and pulse width in 12%. Comparable variability is documented in photobiomodulation, where a guideline panel could not integrate the underlying trials. Three distinct failure modes are separated: quantities never measured, quantities measured and not reported, and quantities reported and then dropped in citation. Both instruments are applied to published cases and to this paper's own claims. Neither has been tested in use, and novelty has not been independently established. Relationship to the author's other work. This paper develops Section 9 of the author's framework review "Bioelectrical Parameters of Living Systems" (concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22829923), in which the two instruments appear in compressed form across roughly 700 words and three tables. A new version of that review, in which Section 9 is reduced to an outline citing this paper, is deposited alongside this one. The parent's earlier versions carry the two instruments in full and remain permanently accessible, which is a property of the deposit system and not something this paper can undo. Version 0.2 of this paper undertook that the parent's Section 9 would be reduced "rather than continuing to carry them in full"; that undertaking is withdrawn at version 0.3, because it was written as though the parent were an unpublished manuscript and no self-archived deposit can remove already-published material. What replaces it is stated in the Declarations. Competing interests. The author is an electronics engineer, the founder and a Director of Rohera Healthcare & Technology Pvt. Ltd., Pune, India, and a named inventor on a patent family relating to electrical stimulation technology. He therefore has a financial and intellectual interest in the field this paper proposes reporting standards for, and a reporting standard authored by a device manufacturer is a document a reader is entitled to be sceptical of. No device or product of the author's, no patent of his or of the company's, and no proprietary framework of either is described, evaluated or assessed anywhere in this paper. Funding: self-funded; no external, grant or institutional funding. Use of AI tools. A large language model (Claude Opus 5, Anthropic) was used for literature retrieval, verification of citation metadata against indexed records, and drafting assistance. The author directed the work, reviewed and edited all content, and takes full responsibility. All claims, interpretations, gradings and conclusions are the author's own. No AI tool is an author.