The efficacy of acupuncture on suicidal behavior: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: One of the leading causes of death worldwide is suicide. Acupuncture has been reported to be related to clinical improvement of some risk factors for suicide including depression. Moreover, practitioner-patient communication is an important component of the acupuncture procedure, which may contribute to suicide risk reduction as a social contact. This systematic review was performed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for suicidal behavior. Methods: A comprehensive search will be conducted in electronic medical databases including MEDLINE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, PsycARTICLES, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang data, VIP Chinese Science and Technology Periodicals, Citation Information by NII, Koreanstudies Information Service System, Korea Citation Index, Research Information Sharing Service, Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System, and Korean Medical database. Interventional studies regardless of its design to assess the role of acupuncture on suicide prevention will be included. The validated measure of suicidal ideation including Beck scale for suicidal ideation will be considered as a primary outcome. The validated tools will be used to assess methodological quality of included studies according to its design (e.g., Cochrane Collaboration's risk of bias tool-2). If sufficient homogeneous data from controlled clinical trials exist, a quantitative synthesis will be performed. According to the heterogeneity of included studies, either a random-effects or fixed-effects model will be used. Discussion: The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis will help to address the emerging major public health problem, suicide, in terms of evidence-based medicine.