Acupuncture therapy on chronic fatigue syndrome based on radar plot: A protocol for an overview of systematic reviews

Abstract

Background: Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating chronic disease of unknown etiology that is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) as a disorder of the brain. CFS affects 1% (17-24 million people) of the world's population and is a major and costly public health problem. In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), acupuncture can achieve a certain effect in the treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome, but evidence-based medicine is controversial. This protocol aims to multi-evaluate the literature quality and evidence quality of the current systematic reviews (SRs)/meta-analyses (MAs) of acupuncture treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome, and provide intuitive and reliable evidence synthesis and decision-making basis for clinical treatment.

Methods: Eight databases will be searched from their inception to 1 June, 2020: the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang Database (WF), Web of Science, Embase, PubMed, and Cochrane Library. Published systematic reviews that were reported in Chinese or English, and the included studies were randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) for acupuncture in people with CFS will be included. Reviews selection, data extraction and management, and assessment of the study quality will be completed independently by 2 or more reviewers. The quality of evidence, methodological quality, and reporting quality will be evaluated by using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE), A Measurement Tool to Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews-2 (AMSTAR-2), Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA), and Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud (Adobe Illustrator CC) will be used to draw and optimize the radar plot.

Results: The article in this overview will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Conclusion: We hope to collect evidence from accessible and useful systematic reviews of acupuncture treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome, to provide visual and scientific decision-making methods for more clinical practice and medical research.

Systematic review registration: INPLASY 202060052.

Figure 1

Flow chart of literature search and study selection process of MAs/SRs of CFS. CFS = chronic fatigue syndrome, MAs = meta-analyses, SRs = systematic reviews.