Journal of Depression and Anxiety
Open Access

Abstract

Efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Treatment of Post-Stroke Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Zi'an Zhou, Zhantu Guo, Mengyao Li, Buweimaieryemu Kudereti, Xuan Gai, Fei Wang, Shuai Zhao, Bin Guo*

Objective: To systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of Post-Stroke Depression (PSD), thereby providing a solid evidence-based foundation for its clinical application.
Materials and methods: Rational inclusion and exclusion criteria were established. A comprehensive search was conducted through databases such as China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Virus Protein (VIP), Chinese Biomedical (CBM) database, Wan Fang and PubMed, complemented by manual searches of relevant references, to collect all Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) on traditional Chinese medicine for treating PSD. The literature search was concluded in August 2023. Two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted data using Excel and assessed the quality of included studies using the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews. Review Manager (RevMan) 5.4 was used for assessing overall effectiveness, changes in depression scale scores (Hamilton Depression (HAMD) rating scale), changes in neurological deficit scores (Modified Edinburgh-Scandinavian Stroke Scale (MESSS), National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), China clinical neurological deficit of Stroke patients Standard for evaluation (CSS)), changes in the Barthel Index (BI) for daily living activities, changes in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) symptom scores and incidence rates of adverse events. Heterogeneity testing, combined effect size analysis, sensitivity analysis, hypothesis testing, forest plot construction and analysis and publication bias assessment using funnel plots were conducted to systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine in treating PSD.
Conclusion: Traditional Chinese medicine has been proven to be effective in treating PSD with a low risk of adverse reactions, making it worthy of widespread clinical application. However, the overall quality of the included studies is relatively low, with certain biases present, which affects the reliability of the conclusions of this meta-analysis. Future high-quality, large-sample, multi-center and rigorously scientific randomized controlled trials are anticipated to continually refine and update the systematic reviews to validate the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in treating PSD

Published Date: 2024-06-03; Received Date: 2024-05-01