What can be concluded from this paper
The authors report slightly lower short-term anxiety after embryo transfer or egg retrieval with acupuncture during IVF, compared with pooled sham, no-acupuncture and medication controls: 0.21 standard deviations lower (95% confidence interval 0.04–0.39 lower). An unresolved statistical discrepancy limits confidence in the reported strength of this finding. The comparison with sham acupuncture alone was inconclusive, allowing either some benefit or little difference. The review does not establish a clinically meaningful, lasting anxiety benefit or improved live births. Only two trials reported treatment side effects, limiting safety conclusions.
Basis for this conclusion
This systematic review included eight randomised trials, with 1,785 participants contributing anxiety assessments. A partial AMSTAR 2 assessment, which examines review methods, identified duplicate study selection and data extraction as strengths. Inaccessible figures, supplements and protocol history prevented completion of the methodological assessment; no overall rating is assigned. Treatments, comparators and anxiety measures differed substantially between trials. Inadequate blinding could influence subjective anxiety ratings. The authors rated the pooled anxiety evidence as very low certainty; that rating was not independently reproduced. A preliminary calculation using the main estimate and confidence interval gives P≈0.019 under a normal-approximation test, rather than the reported 0.003. Both remain statistically significant, but the forest plot and original analysis output are needed to reconcile the discrepancy; it does not by itself prove that the pooled effect was calculated incorrectly.
Assessed 18 Sept 2026.
