Reliability of Evidence to Guide Decision-Making in the Use of Acupuncture for Postpartum Depression

Abstract

Background: There is conflicting evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of postpartum depression (PPD). This study aimed to assess previous systematic reviews/meta-analyses (SRs/MAs) on the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat PPD. Method: SRs/MAs regarding the use of acupuncture for PPD were identified from the establishment of digital databases to November 2021. The Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR-2) was applied to evaluate the methodological quality of included SRs/MAs. The Grades of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) was utilized to evaluate the evidence quality for outcomes of interest. Results: Six studies that conducted quantitative syntheses were included. According to AMSTAR-2, the methodological quality of these SRs/MAs was critically low owing to limitations of items 2, 4, and 7. According to GRADE, no study included high-quality evidence and most studies included low-quality evidence. Conclusions: Acupuncture m be beneficial for PPD, however, due to limitations of current evidence and inconsistent findings, further studies are needed to provide stronger evidence to draw definitive conclusions.