Veteran's Administration and Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63106, USA.
J Am Board Fam Med. 2013 Jan-Feb;26(1):61-70. doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2013.01.120157.
Quitting smoking remains a challenge for almost one-third of the military veteran population. Alternatives to pharmacological therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure, and electrical stimulation have received minimal attention in research but have been widely reported to be popular and safe interventions for smoking cessation.
This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of 125 veterans was conducted to determine whether aural electrical stimulation (auriculotherapy) once a week for 5 consecutive weeks is associated with a higher rate of smoking abstinence are than observed with sham stimulation.
Auriculotherapy was found to be safe and largely free from significant side effects. However, there was no difference in the rate of smoking cessation between those participants who received true auriculotherapy and those who received sham auriculotherapy. The auriculotherapy group achieved a rate of 20.9% abstinence versus 17.9% for the placebo arm after 6 weeks.
The results of this randomized, controlled clinical trial do not support the use of auriculotherapy to assist with smoking cessation. It is possible that a longer treatment duration, more frequent sessions, or other modifications of the intervention protocol used in this study may result in a different outcome. However, based on the results of this study, there is no evidence that auriculotherapy is superior to placebo when offered once a week for 5 weeks, as described in previous uncontrolled studies.
戒烟对近三分之一的退伍军人来说仍然是一个挑战。除了药物治疗之外，替代疗法，如针灸、指压和电刺激，在研究中受到的关注较少，但已被广泛报道为戒烟的流行且安全的干预措施。
本研究对 125 名退伍军人进行了随机、双盲、安慰剂对照的临床试验，以确定每周进行一次、连续 5 周的耳部电刺激（耳针疗法）是否与观察到的假刺激相比，能提高戒烟的成功率。
耳针疗法被发现是安全的，且基本无明显副作用。然而，在接受真正的耳针疗法和接受假耳针疗法的参与者中，戒烟率没有差异。在 6 周后，耳针组的戒烟率为 20.9%，而安慰剂组为 17.9%。
这项随机对照临床试验的结果不支持使用耳针疗法来帮助戒烟。可能需要更长的治疗时间、更频繁的治疗，或对本研究中使用的干预方案进行其他修改，才能得出不同的结果。然而，基于这项研究的结果，没有证据表明耳针疗法在每周一次、连续 5 周的治疗方案中优于安慰剂，这与之前未进行对照的研究结果不同。
