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Exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine for Non-Suicidal Self-Injury: A Narrative Review
Background:
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is both a single syndrome and a manifestation of other mental illnesses. Antidepressant drugs not only have no therapeutic effect but also aggravate or trigger self-injurious behavior in adolescents, making their treatment difficult.
Primary Study Objective:
To explore Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) based approaches (alone or in combination with Western medicine) to treat and manage NSSI, and evaluate its prospects as an effective alternative treatment.
Methods/Design:
The study is a narrative review. The Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WANFANG, and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) in the Chinese database, and the PubMed database in English were searched for relevant studies. The retrieval words were non-suicidal self-injury and Traditional Chinese Medicine. The retrieval relationship is OR/AND. Studies were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Setting:
The study was carried out in Zhejiang Provincial Mental Health Center.
Participants:
The subjects of the studies included in this narrative review.
Intervention:
TCM-based diagnostic and treatment approaches.
Primary Outcome Measures:
To assess the etiology, pathogenesis, and clinical syndrome of NSSI within the scope of TCM.
Results:
NSSI is considered an emotion-thought disorder. The TCM-based approach encompasses the study of the clinical syndrome of NSSI, including the use of animal models of NSSI, diagnosis of the syndrome using an appropriate evaluation scale, and treatment using TCM-based therapeutics.
Conclusion:
The study methods of TCM for NSSI have been proposed. According to the principles of TCM, NSSI belongs to the "Depression" syndrome. The incorporation of TCM in diagnosing and treating NSSI can improve the outcomes.
Keywords:
Integrative medicine; Mental illness; Narrative review; Non-suicidal self-injury; Traditional Chinese medicine.
