Efficacy and safety of acupuncture treatment for depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Jun Ma1, Meng Peng, Xuejiao Xu
1Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.
Background:
A common mental health issue with major worldwide repercussions is depression. Psychological therapy and pharmaceutical treatments are the mainstays of modern depression treatment approaches. Numerous clinical studies have investigated acupuncture's potential role in treating depression, which has led to its rise in popularity as a treatment. Clinical research on its effectiveness and safety, however, has produced conflicting results. By examining randomized controlled trials that compared acupuncture treatment with traditional medication therapy, this study sought to clarify the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture as a stand-alone therapy for patients with depression.
Methods:
From January 2014 to December 2024, a computerized search of the literature on acupuncture for patients with depression was carried out using data from the VIP Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database, Wanfang, the Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure. The data extraction and literature screening were carried out independently by 2 researchers. The RevMan 5.4 software was used to conduct a meta-analysis of the study, which included 20 randomized controlled trials with 1427 individuals.
Results:
The meta-analysis results, based on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale scores, showed a statistically significant difference favoring acupuncture over medication (standardized mean difference: -0.27; 95% confidence interval: -0.41 to -0.12; P = .0003; I2 = 23%; n = 769). The effective rate analysis also favored acupuncture (risk ratio: 1.07; 95% confidence interval: 1.03 to 1.12; P = .001; I2 = 0%; n = 1427).
Conclusion:
The available clinical evidence suggests that acupuncture shows promise as a potentially useful intervention for depression, with a favorable safety profile. However, due to methodological limitations - including a pervasive risk of bias, the absence of sham-controlled comparisons, and the lack of standardized protocols - the evidence quality is low. High-quality research with rigorous methodology and larger sample sizes is required to confirm these findings.