Effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for anxiety disorder of coronavirus disease 2019: A protocol of systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorder places a heavy burden in the clinical treatment of patients of COVID-19. Acupuncture is a recommended treatment of COVID-19 in China, and clinical researches showed the effectiveness of acupuncture. We will conduct this systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for COVID-19. METHODS: Electronic databases of Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Biomedical literature Database (CBM), Chinese Scientific and Journal Database (VIP), and Wan Fang database (Wanfang) will be searched for randomized controlled trials of acupuncture for anxiety disorder of COVID-19 from inception of the database to August 10, 2020. Two reviewers will screen studies, collect information independently. We will utilize RevMan 5.3 for meta-analysis. RESULTS: We will publish the study result to a peer-reviewed journal. CONCLUSION: This study will contribute to provide high-quality evidence of acupuncture for anxiety disorder of COVID-19