Abstract

Objectives: Smoking had a long negative impact on public health. The ingredients of a cigarette are major risk factors for several diseases. Owing to the problems about economic and quality of life, we need to ensure smoking cessation (SC). There are several approaches for SC including pharmacological therapy, nicotine replacement therapy, education, and behavioral intervention. However, due to some limitations, other alternative approaches are gaining popularity. Acupuncture has been reported to have few side effects and be more effective than some conventional treatments in several articles. However, there are no systematic reviews on the comparison of acupuncture combination treatment with other conventional monotherapies. Methods: Randomized controlled trials that used acupuncture as an adjunct treatment for SC will be searched and data will be summarized according to the predefined criteria. The primary outcome will be the abstinence rate, and secondary outcomes will be adverse events and biochemical indicators. We will use Review Manager to perform a meta-analysis, Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias tool for the risk of bias assessment, and the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach to determine the quality of evidence. We will investigate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture combination treatment for SC with this study. Ethics and dissemination: This study will provide reliable clinical evidence on additional effect of acupuncture on smoking cessation. We will publish our results in a peer-review journal.