• Jinke Huang, Min Shen, Xiaohui Qin, and Yong Huang.
• The Second Clinical Medical College of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510120, China.
• Evid Based Compl Alt. 2020 Jan 1; 2020: 6920902.

ObjectivesThe effectiveness of auricular acupuncture (AA) for insomnia is far from uniform. The aim of this overview was to summarize and critically evaluate the evidence from systematic reviews (SRs)/meta-analysis (MAs) and provide an overall verdict about the therapeutic value of AA for insomnia.MethodsA search of relevant literature for SRs/MAs was performed on major medical databases. The methodological quality was assessed using the Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR-2) and the evidence quality was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE).ResultsSeven SRs/MAs were deemed eligible for the present overview. According to the evaluation results of AMSTAR-2, the methodological quality of all included SRs/MAs was critically low. Consistent methodological deficiencies were item 2 (the lack of a protocol), item 4 (the lack of a specific search strategy), item 7 (the lack of a list of excluded studies), and item 15 (the lack of an assessment of publication bias). For GRADE, of the 17 outcomes, only 1 (5.9%) was rated of high-quality, 4 (23.5%) were rated of moderate-quality, and the remaining 12 (70.6%) were rated of low-or critically low-quality. Descriptive analysis of the outcomes reveals a positive effect of AA for insomnia.ConclusionsAA may be beneficial for insomnia, but the evidence is plagued by important limitations, e.g., the poor quality of SRs/MAs and primary studies.Copyright © 2020 Jinke Huang et al.

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