Does electroacupuncture reduce craving for alcohol? A randomized controlled study

Rampes, Hagen; Pereira, Stephen; Mortimer, Ann; Manoharan, Senthil Vel Rajan Rajaram; Knowles, Mark

doi:10.1016/s0965-2299(97)80085-4

Cited by 20 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The number, size, quality, and strength of findings of RCTs studying acupuncture for alcoholism and opiate addiction is insufficient to guide clinical decisions. [80][81][82][83][84][85][86] Asthma Systematic reviews of acupuncture for asthma have concluded that there is little evidence on which to base clinical decisions. 87 88 A number of the included RCTs have examined acupuncture for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.…”

Section: Addictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acupuncture

Vickers

Wilson²,

Kleijnen³

2002

Quality and Safety in Health Care

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Section: Addictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acupuncture

Vickers

Wilson²,

Kleijnen³

2002

Quality and Safety in Health Care

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“…Most RCTs involved two arms, with the exception of three RCTs that were three-armed [10–12], and one that was four-armed [13]. …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, three RCTs used additional selection criteria: one required participants to be inpatients of at least 14 days [13], one required participants to have been drinking within 10 days of enrolment in the outpatient alcoholism treatment programme [12], and one did not specify a definition, only stated that participants were alcohol-dependent [14]. The participants were inpatients in 11 of 15 RCTs, the exceptions were four RCTs involving outpatients [10, 12, 15, 16], and one RCT in which the setting was not specified [17]. The included RCTs were conducted in the USA (n = 3), Europe (n = 6), or East Asia (n = 6).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Six RCTs had fewer than 10 treatment sessions [10, 14, 18–21] two RCTs had 12–18 treatment sessions [13, 15], three RCTs had 24–30 treatment sessions [16, 22, 23], and three RCTs had 36–42 treatment sessions [12, 17, 24]. One RCT included a varying number of treatment sessions, as the sessions were continued until participants had become abstinent from alcohol [11].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One RCT compared acupuncture with an active treatment (aromatherapy) and was therefore excluded from the analysis as it was considered an equivalent intervention [19]. Only six RCTs [10, 14–16, 18, 23] (n = 345 participants) provided sufficient statistical information to include in the meta-analysis. Five of these RCTs measured craving using a quantitative scale; however, only one RCT provided the odds ratio [23].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Acupuncture as an intervention to reduce alcohol dependency: a systematic review and meta-analysis

et al. 2016

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BackgroundAcupuncture has been widely used as a treatment for alcohol dependence. An updated and rigorously conducted systematic review is needed to establish the extent and quality of the evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture as an intervention for reducing alcohol dependence. This review aimed to ascertain the effectiveness of acupuncture for reducing alcohol dependence as assessed by changes in either craving or withdrawal symptoms.MethodsIn this systematic review, a search strategy was designed to identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in either the English or Chinese literature, with a priori eligibility criteria. The following English language databases were searched from inception until June 2015: AMED, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and PubMed; and the following Chinese language databases were similarly searched: CNKI, Sino-med, VIP, and WanFang. Methodological quality of identified RCTs was assessed using the Jadad Scale and the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool.ResultsFifteen RCTs were included in this review, comprising 1378 participants. The majority of the RCTs were rated as having poor methodological rigour. A statistically significant effect was found in the two primary analyses: acupuncture reduced alcohol craving compared with all controls (SMD = −1.24, 95% CI = −1.96 to −0.51); and acupuncture reduced alcohol withdrawal symptoms compared with all controls (SMD = −0.50, 95% CI = −0.83 to −0.17). In secondary analyses: acupuncture reduced craving compared with sham acupuncture (SMD = −1.00, 95% CI = −1.79 to −0.21); acupuncture reduced craving compared with controls in RCTs conducted in Western countries (SMD = −1.15, 95% CI = −2.12 to −0.18); and acupuncture reduced craving compared with controls in RCTs with only male participants (SMD = −1.68, 95% CI = −2.62 to −0.75).ConclusionThis study showed that acupuncture was potentially effective in reducing alcohol craving and withdrawal symptoms and could be considered as an additional treatment choice and/or referral option within national healthcare systems.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13020-016-0119-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions

Hróbjartsson

Gøtzsche

2010

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

392

201

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We did not find that placebo interventions have important clinical effects in general. However, in certain settings placebo interventions can influence patient-reported outcomes, especially pain and nausea, though it is difficult to distinguish patient-reported effects of placebo from biased reporting. The effect on pain varied, even among trials with low risk of bias, from negligible to clinically important. Variations in the effect of placebo were partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted and how patients were informed.

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Does electroacupuncture reduce craving for alcohol? A randomized controlled study

Cited by 20 publications

References 23 publications

Acupuncture

Acupuncture

Acupuncture as an intervention to reduce alcohol dependency: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions

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