Currently submitted to: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Feb 26, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 3, 2026 - Apr 28, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Acupuncture and related therapies for post-infectious cough: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
ABSTRACT
Background:
Post-infectious cough (PIC) is a distinct subacute condition lasting 3 to 8 weeks, affecting 11% to 25% of patients following a respiratory infection. While recent reviews have addressed acupuncture for chronic cough (>8 weeks), the efficacy and safety of these therapies specifically targeting the transient inflammatory pathophysiology of subacute PIC remain unsynthesized. Current pharmacological interventions often provide limited relief or carry adverse effects.
Objective:
This protocol aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of needle-based acupuncture therapies for adults with subacute PIC, compared to conventional medication, sham treatment, or no treatment.
Methods:
We will search MEDLINE (via PubMed), Embase, CENTRAL, CINAHL, Scopus, AMED, SCI, and five Chinese databases from inception onwards. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving adults (≥18 years) with PIC will be included. To avoid pharmacological confounding, acupoint injection will be excluded. Primary outcomes are the Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) total score and validated cough severity scales (e.g., Visual Analogue Scale). Two reviewers will independently screen studies, extract data, and assess the risk of bias using the Cochrane RoB 2 tool. A random-effects model will be used for meta-analysis, with results stratified by predefined comparison strata (acupuncture vs sham/placebo, active therapy, or add-on designs). Evidence certainty will be evaluated using the GRADE framework.
Results:
This protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD420251268158). As of February 2026, preliminary database searches have been piloted. Formal study screening, data extraction, and evidence synthesis are scheduled to commence in April 2026.
Conclusions:
This systematic review will provide rigorously synthesized evidence exclusively for the subacute PIC population, offering targeted clinical guidance that is currently missing from broader chronic cough assessments. Clinical Trial: PROSPERO CRD420251268158; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420251268158
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.