Chinese Herbal Medicine and Depression: The Research Evidence

Table 2

Comparison of systematic reviews.

	Kou and Chen 2012 [26]	Qin et al. 2011 [22]	Wang et al. 2012 [25]	Zhang et al. 2012 [23]	Zhao et al. 2009 [21]	Current SR
Herbs included	Chinese herbs; combined with ADs	Free and Easy; Wanderer Plus; (and modifications)	Chaihu-Shugan-San	Xiao Yao San; (and modifications)	Chinese herbs	Chinese herbs
Comparison	AD only	AD, placebo	AD	AD	Various treatments	AD, placebo
Databases searched	Chinese and Western	Chinese and Western	Chinese and Western	Chinese and Western	Chinese	Western
Date of searches	March 2010	December 2010	December 2010	November 2009	July 2008	July 2011
Diagnostic criteria	Not restricted	Not restricted	CCMD/DSM/ICD	Not restricted	“Western criteria”	Not restricted
Types of trials included	RCTs	RCTs	RCTs	RCTs	RCTs and quasi-RCTs	RCTs
Number of trials (participants)	7 (576)	14 (1224)	10 (835)	26 (1837)	18 (1260)	8 (756)
Outcome measures	HAM-D	HAM-D	HAM-D	Clinical effect, HAM-D, SDS	HAM-D, SDS	Various
Extraction and Assessment process	not reported	2 reviewers independently	2 reviewers independently	2 reviewers independently	not reported	2 reviewers independently
Evaluation method	Risk of bias	Jadad plus 3 criteria	Modified Jadad	Risk of bias	Jadad	DB, Jadad, ROB
Bias/quality of trials	Unclear/high risk	All scored 3+	All scored <4	Unclear/high risk	All scored 1-2	Unclear/high risk
Meta-analysis results
Herb versus placebo	—	OR 9.40 [5.57,15.89]	—	—	Unclear	—
Herb + AD versus AD	WMD −2.39 [−2.96, −1.83]	OR 1.75 [1.26, 2.44]	WMD −3.56 [−5.09, −2.03]	WMD −0.51 [−0.71, −0.31]	—	—
Herb versus AD	—	OR 1.09 [0.60, 1.98]	WMD −3.09 [−5.13, −1.06]	WMD 0.43 [−2.14, 2.99]	—	—
Overall results	Positive	Positive	Positive	Positive	Negative*	Inconclusive

Key: AD: antidepressants, DB: Downs and Black, ROB: risk of bias, WMD: weighted mean difference, *results unclear.