Acupuncture for the treatment of anxiety and depression in patients with spinal cord injury: A study protocol for systematic review and meta analysis.

Background: Spinal cord injury patients frequently suffer from anxiety and depression, which can seriously affect their quality of life and recovery. Acupuncture, as a traditional Chinese therapy, has been used to treat anxiety and depression for more than 2000 years. The aim is to evaluate the clinical efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of anxiety and depression in spinal cord injury patients.

Methods: The literature on acupuncture treating anxiety and depression in patients with spinal cord injury in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Scientific Journal Data, and Wanfang data were searched through computers from the establishment of the database to May 2024. In the study, the Cochrane tool for assessing the risk of bias was used and the meta-analyses were carried out using the software package Review Manager 5.4.

Results: Ten trials were included in this systematic review, with 361 cases in the experimental group and 355 cases in the control group. Meta-analysis showed that compared with conventional treatment, acupuncture combined with conventional treatment was beneficial in improving the total clinical efficacy (odds ratio = 3.55 [95% confidence interval {CI}: 1.34-9.37], P < .001). We found acupuncture-assisted therapy could be beneficial in improving the Modified Barthel Index (MD = 10.48 [95% CI: 4.78-16.19], P < .001) and reducing anxiety or depression scores (such as the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale [MD = -6.08 {95% CI: -6.85 to -5.30}, P < .001]; reducing the Self-Rating Depression Scale [MD = -6.01 {95% CI: -6.95 to -5.07}, P < .001]). In addition, the study showed that the application of acupuncture treatment could improve 5-hydroxytryptamine compared to control group (MD = 44.99 [95% CI: 40.04-49.95], P < .001) and reduce TNF-α compared to control group (MD = -7.78 [95% CI: -8.73 to -6.83], P < .001).

Conclusion: Acupuncture could be used as a complementary therapy to reduce anxiety and depression in spinal cord injury patients. Further original and high-quality research is needed to verify the conclusions of this study.