[Overview of systematic review on acupoint application for bronchial asthma]

To overview the systematic review/meta-analysis on acupoint application for bronchial asthma.

A computerized retrieval was performed from 6 databases, named CNKI, CBM, VIP, WF, PubMed and Cochrane Library. The time of retrieval was from the establishment of the database to April 1, 2019. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the two researchers independently selected articles and extracted data. In case of disagreement, a third party was adopted to solve it. Using AMSTAR2, PRISMA and GRADE, the literature quality and evidence grade were assessed.

A total of 19 articles relevant with systematic evaluation/meta-analysis were included, 16 articles of which were in Chinese and 3 articles in English, published in the period from 2007 to 2018. Forty-two outcome indicators were included. It was found that the quality of methodology was very low, the quality of literature report has some or serious flaws and the quality level of evidence is mostly low or very low.

Currently, regarding the articles of systematic review/meta-analysis on acupoint application for bronchial asthma, it is quite low in methodological quality and literature report quality and is not high in the grade of outcome indicators. The clinical research should be intensively specified in association with the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine so as to provide more reliable clinical evidence.