Systematic Review: Effects of Acupuncture Therapy on Insomnia

Systematic Review: Effects of Acupuncture Therapy on Insomnia

Study identification: Sohyune R. Sok, Kwuy Bun Kim and Judith A. Erlen , Effects of Acupuncture Therapy on Insomnia , 2003, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 44(4), pp. 375-384.

Research Question of Systematic Review:

What are the trends in the intervention studies using Acupuncture Therapy for

insomnia from 1975 to 2002 and what are the effects of Acupuncture Therapy

on insomnia in elderly people?

Section 1 : Internal validity

In a well conducted systematic review

In this study this criterion is:

1.1

The study addresses an appropriate and clearly focussed question

Well covered [(]

Adequately

addressed [ ]

Poorly

addressed [ ]

Not

addressed [ ]

Not reported [ ]

Not

applicable [ ]

Justification for your Answer

The study addresses an appropriate and clearly focused research problem structured around the impact of Acupuncture Therapy that has been widely used in clinical practice in oriental cultures on insomnia patients.

1.2

A description of the methodology used is included

Type of intervention

Specific intervention

Participants

Outcomes assessed

Well covered [ ]

Adequately

addressed [ ]

Poorly

addressed [(]

Not

addressed [ ]

Not reported [ ]

Not

applicable [ ]

Justification for your Answer:

The systematic review analyzes the data related with the impact of Acupuncture Therapy on sleep disorder of insomnia published between the period of January 1975 to December 2002. This review has provided a detailed overview of the reviewed literature that it was searched from various electronic databases by entering the key words insomnia, experimental design and acupuncture. The inclusion criteria for the papers was conditioned with their publication in English language only during the period of 1974 to 2002 and integartion of an experimental study intervening Acupuncture Therapy for treating insomnia that was just met by 11 research papers. The collected literature has been analyzed with the aid of SPSS for Windows and formulation of descriptive statistics like percentages and frequencies.

The type of intervention used is not clarified adequately in the review as no specification detail for the study designs has been mentioned in the systematic review except the one that the relative studies are required to be experimental in nature.

The information about the inclusion criteria for the interventions is just confined to stating 'Acupuncture Therapy'. In all the studies included in the review, a diverse range of meridian points have been used along with a varying duration and treatment frequencies.

The review has not revealed the information about the participants studied in all the eleven studies. The basic priori definition for the participants is missing in the review that could necessarily be that the participants were insomniac patients. Rather it directly comes to the number of participants included.

The researchers reported outcomes in terms of the effectiveness of the acupuncture and duration of the time asleep as a result of clinical intervention of Acupuncture Therapy. The review just depicted the outcomes related with relief of insomnia rather than assessing all the related outcomes like the time taken by Acupuncture Therapy to heal related patients as compared to other therapies and the impact of one clinical session of Acupuncture Therapy.

1.3

The literature search is sufficiently rigorous to ...