Acupuncture improving mental health of patients with migraine: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Abstract Background Migraine is a neurological disease characterized by moderate to severe headache and various neurological symptoms. It is often cause mood and anxiety disorders that can seriously affect quality of life. Acupuncture has been claimed to have a role in treating neuropsychiatric disorders and is becoming increasingly popular. However, it remains unclear whether current evidence is sufficient to support acupuncture in improving mental health in migraine patients. Objectives This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the effect of acupuncture on the management of pain and mood disorders in patients with migraine. Methods We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science and other databases for reports, conferences and academic papers published before January 1, 2022. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including acupuncture, sham acupuncture and medication for migraine were included. Cochrane collaboration software RevMan 5.4 was used for data processing and migration risk analysis. Result Eleven randomized controlled trials containing 1734 migraine patients were included in the present study, from which we can conclude that the effect of acupuncture is better than that of sham acupuncture or drugs in terms of reducing the frequency of migraine attacks FM (WMD: -0.55; 95% CI: [-0.85, -0.25]; P < 0.001), VAS score (WMD = -0.66, 95% CI: [-1.10, -0.22], P = 0.003) and the average number of suffering days per month (WMD = -1.13, 95% CI [-1.57, -0.69], P < 0.001)). While acupuncture intervention was effective only in the short-term (<3 months) in respect to improving people’s life quality and related mental health, MSQ (WMD = 2.53; 95% CI: [1.09, 3.96]; P = 0.001) and SF (WMD = 6.08, 95% CI: [1.31, 10.84], P = 0.012) long-term follow-up showed that there was no significant difference between the acupuncture and control groups. Conclusion In comparison with the control group, acupuncture featured more prominently in reducing migraine pain severity, attack frequency and the average number of painful days per month. In addition, better short-term effects are witnessed in improving the quality of life and mental health of migraine patients. From the perspective of long-term outcome analysis, the present study does not seem to make a difference between the acupuncture group and the control group in improving patients’ mental health. Moreover, the acupuncture group had a lower incidence of adverse events than the control group. This study shows that acupuncture may improve quality of life and mental health in migraine sufferers in the short term.