Efficacy of Acupuncture and Related Techniques on Delirium: Protocol of a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Abstract Background: Delirium, contributing to subsequent increased morbidity and mortality, is common in hospitalized patients, especially in patients undergoing major surgery. Published systematic reviews suggest that certain medications for delirium management may decrease pain scores and analgesic requirements, at the expense of troublesome side effects. People are urgently seeking non-medication strategies for delirium. Acupuncture and related techniques (ART) are increasingly used to provide medical care and have potential to prevent delirium, however, the efficacy of ART on delirium remains controversial.Methods: In accordance with the PRISMA-P guidelines, we will search PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL)), Web of Science, Medline and the Cochrane Library for clinical trials on ART use in people, without language restrictions. The incidence of delirium will be defined our primary outcome. Additional outcomes will be the incidence of adverse events, pain score, consumption of analgesics, number of cumulative delirious days, hemodynamics, length of hospital stay. Two researchers independently complete further review work and data abstraction based on pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Any discrepancy will be solved by negotiation or a third investigators. Cochrane Risk of Bias tool will be used to assess the methodological quality of all the studies that are finally included. Statistical heterogeneity was assessed by forest plots, confidence intervals (CI) and I² statistic. If feasible, a meta-analysis of included results will be performed.Conclusions: This protocol will be favorable to bridge the gap between non-medication strategies and clinical diseases, and potential to help future guideline development in management of preventing delirium.Systematic review registration: The protocol was prospectively registered on the homepage of the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO): https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO.