SynthesisMedicine2019
The effectiveness of acupuncture therapy in patients with post-stroke depression: An updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in Medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acupuncture for post-stroke depression: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Acupuncture for post-stroke depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2021Pooled it
- Combining electroacupuncture and transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation for psychiatric disorders in women victims of domestic violence: An assessor-blinded, randomised controlled trial.General psychiatry · 2026Article
- The Therapeutic Potential of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Post-Stroke Depression.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Acupuncture and Moxibustion for Poststroke Depression: Systematic Review.Interactive journal of medical research · 2025Review
- Effectiveness and Safety of Acupuncture as an Adjunctive Therapy for Post-Stroke Depression: An Overview of Systematic Reviews.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2025Review
- Effects of Manual Acupuncture Versus Sham Acupuncture in patients with Post-Stroke Depression: A Randomized Clinical Trial.Neurology and therapy · 2024Article
- Electroacupuncture regulates gut microbiota to reduce depressive-like behavior in rats.Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Combination of stem cell therapy and acupuncture to treat ischemic stroke: a prospective review.Stem cell research & therapy · 2022Review
- Article
- Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine Integrated With Conventional Rehabilitation for Post-stroke Functional Recovery: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Potential Mechanisms and Clinical Effectiveness of Acupuncture in Depression.Current neuropharmacology · 2022Review
- A Narrative Review on the Non-Pharmacologic Interventions in Post-Stroke Depression.Psychology research and behavior management · 2022Review
- Effects of auricular acupuncture stimulation on healthy adults' upper limb motor-evoked potentials: A randomized, crossover, double-blind study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Trends of Acupuncture Therapy on Depression From 2011 to 2020: A Bibliometric Analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Article
- Acupuncture plus rehabilitation for post-stroke depression: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.Medicine · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo assess the effectiveness of acupuncture in patients with post-stroke depression (PSD).
methodsThe Cochrane Library, CINAHL, EMBASE, PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and 4 Chinese databases were electronically searched for articles published between January 1, 2010 and May 31, 2018. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the effects of acupuncture on PSD were included. The quality of all included trials was assessed according to guidelines published by the Cochrane Collaboration.
resultsSeven trials compared the effectiveness of acupuncture therapy with that of control in alleviating the symptoms of PSD. Pooled analysis demonstrated that patients in the acupuncture intervention group experienced a significantly higher treatment effect than controls (RR 1.16 [95% CI 1.08-1.24]; P < .0001), with low study heterogeneity (I = 4%). Based on intervention methods, further analysis revealed a statistically significant difference in effectiveness between the acupuncture alone and medicine groups (RR 1.25 [95% CI 1.11 1.41]; Z = 3.78; P = .0002). There was no statistically significant difference in efficacy between the acupuncture combined with medicine and medicine groups (RR 1.07 [95% CI 0.98-1.17]; P = .11).
conclusionsThis meta-analysis provides evidence supporting the viewpoint that acupuncture is an effective and safe treatment for PSD. Subgroup analyses further revealed that acupuncture alone resulted in better outcomes than drug therapy in improving depressive symptoms. Further high-quality RCTs are needed to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture for PSD and develop standardized acupuncture protocols.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.