ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2025
Efficacy and safety of electroacupuncture on treating mild to moderate first-episode depression: a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mechanism-Driven Translation of Electroacupuncture for Depression: Bridging the Gap Between Preclinical and Clinical Research.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Review
- Exploring the neural mechanisms of electroacupuncture for cognitive impairment in depression using functional near-infrared spectroscopy: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Only 30%-40% of patients with first-episode depression recover after taking antidepressants. Acupuncture is a clinically recognized treatment for depression, but its effect on first-episode depression remains unknown. This randomized controlled trial is designed to investigate the efficacy and safety of electroacupuncture (EA) compared with escitalopram (ESC) in treating patients with mild to moderate first-episode depression. Methods and analysis: This is a multi-site, single-blind, randomized controlled trial with two parallel arms. A total of 204 eligible patients will be randomly allocated to two groups: the EA group (receiving EA treatment with placebo drugs) and the ESC group (receiving escitalopram and sham acupuncture treatment). Treatment will last 12 weeks, with 3 sessions per week for the first 8 weeks, decreasing to 2 per week for the remaining 4 weeks. The primary outcome will be the score of the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17), and the secondary outcomes will include depression recovery rate, depression remission rate, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), 36-Item Short Form Survey Instrument (SF-36), and the dose and frequency of ESC. The Treatment Emergent Symptom Scale (TESS) will be used to assess all adverse effects. Full details of the statistical analysis plan for the primary and secondary outcomes will be described in this article.
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