Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Substance Use Disorders: A Scientometric Analysis and Visualization of Its Use Between 2001 and 2020

Equine-assisted therapy effectiveness in improving emotion regulation, self-efficacy, and perceived self-esteem of patients suffering from substance use disorders

Substance Use Disorders (SUD) is a universal overwhelming public health problem and is associated with other psychological and mental health ailments such as emotion regulation, perceived self-esteem, and self-efficacy problems. Complementary and alternative medicine may be beneficial. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of equine-assisted therapy in improving emotion regulation, self-efficacy, and perceived self-esteem among patients suffering from substance use disorders. It was carried out using a randomized controlled trial design at Behman hospital, Cairo, Egypt. It included 100 patients suffering from SUD attending the setting, equally randomized into an intervention group to receive the equine assisted therapy and a control group to receive the regular care. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire with standardized tools for assessment of emotion regulation, General Self-Efficacy (GSE), and perceived self-esteem. The intervention group received weekly equine-assisted therapy sessions over 6 weeks in addition to their standard regular therapy. Patients in both groups had similar demographic and SUD characteristics, as well as baseline scores of reappraisals, suppression, GSE and perceived self-esteem. At post-intervention, the intervention group had significant improvements in all these scores in comparison with the control group, as well as their baseline. The multivariate analysis identified the study intervention as a significant positive predictor of the reappraisal and GSE scores, and a negative predictor of the suppression and perceived self-esteem negative score. In conclusion, equine assisted-therapy as a complementary treatment in patients suffering from SUD is effective in improving their emotion regulation, self-efficacy, and perceived self-esteem. A wider use of this approach is recommended in SUD patients along with provision of needed facilities and resources, and training nurses in its administration. Further research is proposed to assess its long-term effectiveness. The clinical trial was registered in the "Clinical Trials.gov Protocol Registration and Results System (PRS);" registration number is (05632185/2022) and the full date of first registration is 10/11/2022.

Efficacy and safety of acupuncture combined with auricular acupressure for smoking cessation: A study protocol of a multicentre, randomized, controlled clinical trial

Background

Nicotine dependence is an addictive behavioral disease facilitated by habitually smoking cigarettes. In many countries, acupuncture and auricular acupressure have attracted growing attention as complementary or alternative treatments for smoking cessation; however, there is a lack of rigorous randomized, controlled studies evaluating the combination of these two interventions specifically for smoking cessation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of using acupuncture combined with auricular acupressure (A&AA) to increase the rates of smoking cessation and ultimately reduce the rates of relapse.

Methods

This is a multicentre, prospective, parallel, randomized, controlled trial. A total of 360 patients with severe nicotine dependence will be randomized into test (A&AA) or control (nicotine replacement therapy, NRT) groups. The test group will be treated with A&AA twice weekly, while the control group will use an NRT patch daily. All treatments will be administered for 8 weeks, with a follow-up period of 4 months. The primary outcome will be the smoking abstinence rate at week 24, with a combined safety assessment. The secondary outcomes will be smoking cessation rates at other timepoints, saliva cortisone test results, and scores on the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence, the Autonomy over Tobacco Scale, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, the Self-rating Anxiety Scale, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The cost of treatment will also be used to evaluate the economic effects of different smoking cessation interventions. Statistical analysis on the data collected from both the intention-to-treat (all randomly assigned patients) and per-protocol (patients who complete the trial without any protocol deviations) patients, will be performed using the statistical software package, IBM SPSS 27.0.

Discussion

This study will provide rigorous clinical evidence evaluating the efficacy and safety of using A&AA as a smoking cessation therapy.

Trial registration

Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (Registration number: ChiCTR1900028371).