Acupuncture for Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Summary & key facts

Researchers combined 29 clinical trials with about 2,300 people to see if acupuncture helps with clinical depression. They looked at manual, electrical, and laser acupuncture and compared these to usual care, fake (sham) acupuncture, and to medicines when acupuncture was added on. Overall, acupuncture reduced depression symptoms more than usual care and more than sham acupuncture. The benefit was largest when acupuncture was used together with standard antidepressant medicine. The researchers also found that more acupuncture sessions were linked to bigger improvements. However, many of the studies had problems with how they were done, most were done in China where patients got more frequent

Key facts:

• The review included 29 clinical trials with about 2,300 people who had clinically diagnosed depression.
• Acupuncture led to a small-to-moderate drop in depression symptoms compared with usual care.
• Acupuncture performed better than sham or fake acupuncture in reducing depression symptoms.
• The largest effect was seen when acupuncture was used in addition to standard antidepressant medication.
• Researchers found a clear link: studies that gave more acupuncture sessions tended to show bigger improvements in depression.
• Many included trials had weaknesses: participants or therapists were often not blinded, most trials were done in China with more frequent treatments, and most studies gave poor information about safety and long-term follow up.

Abstract

Acupuncture may be a suitable adjunct to usual care and standard anti-depressant medication.

Topics

Acupuncture Treatment Research Studies Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies Pain Management and Placebo Effect

Categories

Complementary and alternative medicine Health Sciences Medicine

Tags

Acupuncture Alternative medicine Blinding Clinical trial Confidence interval Depression (economics) Economics Internal medicine Law Macroeconomics Major depressive disorder Medicine MEDLINE Meta-analysis Mood Pathology Physical therapy Political science Psychiatry Psychological intervention Randomized controlled trial Reporting bias

Conditions & symptoms

Depression Sadness or low mood