Acupuncture for common cold: A systematic review and meta-analyze protocol.

Area of Science:

• Integrative Medicine
• Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Evidence-Based Healthcare

Background:

• The common cold (CC) is a prevalent human infection with no specific treatment.
• Acupuncture, a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) therapy, is used for symptom relief.
• Limited evidence exists on acupuncture's efficacy and safety for CC.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture for common cold symptom duration and severity.
• To assess the safety of acupuncture as a CC intervention.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
• Comprehensive search of multiple electronic databases (e.g., Web of Science, Cochrane, CNKI) up to January 1, 2019.
• Cochrane risk of bias tool for quality assessment; RevMan V.5.3.5 for data synthesis.

Main Results:

• Synthesis of evidence on acupuncture's impact on CC symptom reduction rates.
• Analysis of resolved cold symptoms and overall cold duration.
• Objective and subjective measures will be used to assess outcomes.

Conclusions:

• This study will present synthesized evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture for the common cold.
• The findings will inform clinical practice regarding acupuncture as a CC intervention.