STUDY PROTOCOL article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Sleep Disorders
Acupuncture and Related Therapies for Insomnia Symptoms in Hypertensive Patients: Protocol for A Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
Provisionally accepted
- Jinan municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract Introduction Insomnia and hypertension frequently co-occur and may exacerbate cardiovascular risk. While acupuncture and related therapies (ARTs) are widely used for sleep symptoms, comparative effectiveness across modalities is unclear. This protocol outlines a Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) to compare ARTs for insomnia symptoms in adults with hypertension and to inform clinical decision-making. Methods and analysis This protocol follows PRISMA-P and is registered in PROSPERO. We will search PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), Web of Science, and four Chinese databases (CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, SinoMed) from inception to January 2026, and screen WHO ICTRP, ClinicalTrials.gov, and ChiCTR without language restrictions. Eligible studies are randomized controlled trials enrolling adults with hypertension and insomnia, comparing an ART against sham, usual care, sleep hygiene, pharmacotherapy, or another ART. The primary outcome is change in global insomnia severity at post-treatment or first follow-up; secondary outcomes include sleep parameters, blood pressure, quality of life, mood, and adverse events. Pairwise meta-analyses will be performed in RevMan. A Bayesian random-effects NMA will be implemented in R (v4.4.1), with network plots and league tables generated in Stata (v15.1). Assumptions of transitivity and coherence will be assessed using design-by-treatment and node-splitting approaches; model fit will be compared using deviance information criterion. Risk of bias will be assessed with RoB 2; certainty will be rated using GRADE adapted for NMA, with prespecified subgroup and sensitivity analyses. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval is not required because only published and registry data will be analyzed. Findings will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal and shared with clinicians and policymakers to guide selection and deployment of ARTs for insomnia in hypertensive populations. PROSPERO registration number CRD420251173289.
Keywords: Acupuncture, Complementary therapy, Hypertension, insomnia, Network meta-analysis
Received: 22 Oct 2025; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zhi, Feng and Sheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yun-jiao Sheng
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.