SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Sleep Disorders
Beyond Night Time Symptoms: Acupuncture for Daytime Dysfunction Improvement in Insomnia – A Meta-Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Longhua Hospital, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
- 2University of Malta Faculty of Medicine & Surgery, Msida, Malta
- 3Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
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
Insomnia features by persistent difficulties in sleep initiation and sleep maintenance, leading to significant daytime dysfunction and diminished quality of life. While acupuncture is increasingly utilized in the management of insomnia, its specific efficacy in alleviating daytime dysfunction remains inadequately substantiated. This systematic review aims to address this evidence gap. A total of 5037 articles from 6 electronic databases were searched and screened. Data analysis was performed utilizing Review Manager 5.4 software and Stata 13. The Cochrane tool for assessing the risk of bias in randomized trials (RoB2) and GRADE were used to evaluate the quality of the RCTs and the evidence. 18 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) encompassing a total of 1767 patients were analysed. Data of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Auditory Verbal Memory Test (AVMT), and Fatigue Scale-14 (FS-14) scores were extracted and aggregated, along with the scores of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Moderate-quality evidence showed that acupuncture therapies could not only significantly reduce insomnia severity, but also enhance memory ability and relievef cognitive impairment. Low-quality evidence presented that acupuncture could improve sleep quality and reduce fatigue in patients with chronic primary insomnia. Although heterogeneity was observed across several synthesized outcomes, the results turned out to be robust.
Keywords: Acupuncture, daytime function, Electroacupuncture, insomnia, Meta-analysis
Received: 23 Nov 2025; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Li, Yang, Pei, Ventura, Zhong, Ma and Fu. 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:
Jie Ma
Qinhui Fu
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.