Korean J Clin Pharm.  2017 Dec;27(4):267-275. 10.24304/kjcp.2017.27.4.267.

The Effects of Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine for the Treatment of Whabyung: A Meta-analysis

• Kim Y
• Chung SY
• Choi EJ
• Cho E

• KMID: 2403332
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.24304/kjcp.2017.27.4.267

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Whabyung is a Korean cultural disorder characterized by a combination of emotional stress and physical symptoms. Acupuncture, herbal medicines and other complementary medicinal treatments are used to treat the symptoms of whabyung. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of acupuncture treatment and herbal medicine treatments on anger, anxiety and depression of whabyung.
METHODS
Using PubMed, CENTRAL, AMED, MEDLINE, EMBASE, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cnii, CNKI, J-SATGE, PsycArticles, KISS, KoreaMed, kmbase, NDSL, RISS, OASIS and Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal, articles published by March 2017 for whabyung or whabyung-related syndrome were searched. The quality of selected articles was evaluated using RoB and RoBANS. The effects of acupuncture and herbal medicines on anger, anxiety, and depression levels of whabyung patients were considered for meta-analyses.
RESULTS
Of the total 2408 articles retrieved from the database, 11 were finally selected and 4 articles were used for meta-analyses. Acupuncture reduced whabyung patients' anger and anxiety. Especially, the state anxiety was significantly reduced (effect size= −0.676, p= .026). Herbal medicine had effects on reducing anxiety and state anger while trait anger was increased without statistical significance.
CONCLUSION
The present study showed the effectiveness of acupuncture and herbal medicines for whabyung patients in general. However, considering the limited availability of articles and the heterogeneity between them included for the meta-analysis, the results should be generalized with caution. In the future, more studies within the structure of evidence-based medicine need to be conducted to generate objective and valid evidences of korean medicine.

Keyword

Whabyung; acupuncture; herbal medicine; meta-analysis; systematic review