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Effectiveness and safety of moxibustion for primary insomnia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, July 2016
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Title
Effectiveness and safety of moxibustion for primary insomnia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Published in
BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, July 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12906-016-1179-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Yu-Jiao Sun, Jia-Min Yuan, Zhi-Min Yang

Abstract

Primary insomnia is a widespread and refractory disease. Moxibustion therapy for insomnia shows some advantages compared with conventional therapies. This systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of moxibustion therapy for insomnia. We conducted a comprehensive literature review of the CENTRAL, PubMed, EMBASE, Web of science, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang Data databases from their inception to July 2015 for RCTs that compared moxibustion with western medications, oral Chinese medicine, or other methods of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in patients with primary insomnia. The primary outcome measure was effective rate and secondary outcome measure was adverse events. Data collection and analysis included risk of bias evaluation, meta-analysis, sensitivity analysis, publication bias and adverse events analysis according to corresponding criteria. The study included 22 RCTs (1,971 patients). The quality of the studies was low. The overall meta-analysis demonstrated that moxibustion was more effective for insomnia than western medications, oral Chinese medicine and other TCM therapies (RR = 1.17, 95 % CI 1.12 to 1.23, P < 0.00001). Subgroup analyses demonstrated that moxibustion was more effective for insomnia than western medications (RR = 1.16, 95 % CI 1.09 to 1.24, P < 0.00001), oral Chinese medicine (RR = 1.11, 95 % CI 1.04 to 1.18, P = 0.002), and other TCM therapies (RR = 1.22, 95 % CI 1.15 to 1.30, P < 0.00001). There were no serious adverse effects associated with moxibustion therapy for insomnia, and the rate of adverse events was low. It is difficult to get the conclusion regarding the effectiveness and safety of moxibustion for primary insomnia due to insufficient evidence, such as the high risk of bias in the included studies, small sample sizes, and few reports on adverse effects. Moxibustion should be considered as a novel therapeutic option for insomnia, and more rigorous clinical trials of moxibustion therapy for insomnia are needed to assess its effects.

Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 93 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 93 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 17 18%
Researcher 13 14%
Student > Master 10 11%
Student > Postgraduate 5 5%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 4%
Other 16 17%
Unknown 28 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 28 30%
Nursing and Health Professions 20 22%
Psychology 8 9%
Neuroscience 3 3%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 1 1%
Other 4 4%
Unknown 29 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 October 2019.
All research outputs
#18,465,988
of 22,880,691 outputs
Outputs from BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies
#2,518
of 3,637 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#271,353
of 354,668 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies
#70
of 106 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,880,691 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 11th percentile – i.e., 11% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,637 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.5. This one is in the 17th percentile – i.e., 17% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 354,668 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 12th percentile – i.e., 12% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 106 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 21st percentile – i.e., 21% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.