The Effect of Acupressure on Chemotherapy-Induced Anxiety and Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Cancer patients are prone to experiencing negative emotions such as anxiety and depression after receiving chemotherapy. Research has shown that acupressure may be beneficial in relieving the anxiety and depression caused by chemotherapy, but high-quality evidence is lacking. This study was designed to systematically evaluate the efficacy of acupressure for relieving chemotherapy-induced anxiety and depression.

This review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA framework. Four English databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library) and four Chinese databases (CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, and CBM) were searched from inception to December 31, 2022, to identify randomized clinical trials examining the use of acupressure for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced anxiety and depression. Cochrane Review Manager 5.4 and RStudio were used for the meta-analysis.

This meta-analysis included 1,119 patients from 12 randomized controlled trials. We mainly compared acupressure with sham acupressure and routine nursing. The results showed that acupressure alleviated chemotherapy-induced anxiety (standardized mean difference [SMD] = -0.72, 95% confidence interval [CI] [-1.15, -0.28], p = 0.001) and depression (SMD = -0.75, 95% CI [-1.36, -0.14], p = 0.02) more effectively than sham acupressure and routine nursing.

This meta-analysis found that acupressure (body point) can relieve chemotherapy-induced anxiety and depression and improve the quality of life of patients. However, the current relevant literature has low quality and is highly heterogeneous, which reduces the credibility of the research results. Therefore, more rigorously designed randomized controlled trials are needed to verify these conclusions.