Research Article Effects of Deqi on Autonomic Balance in Adult Tinnitus Patients: Study Design of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Copyright © 2013 Qian-Qian Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Recent reports suggest that a proportion of tinnitus patients suffer from mental illness. Autonomic nervous system plays a useful role in tinnitus therapy since electrical vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) has been frequently used to alleviate tinnitus-induced depression in clinic. heart rate variability (HRV),which is reflective of autonomic nervous system function, has been proved to bemodulated by acupuncture. In the present study, we aim to compare the effect of deqi sensation on heart rate variability in adult tinnitus patients.Methods.Thirty participants are randomly assigned to verum acupuncture (creating deqi) or shallow acupuncture (not creating deqi) at Baihui (Du-20), Shenting (Du-24), Tinghui (GB-2), Waiguan (SJ-5), and Zulinqi (GB-41) for 3 weeks. The primary outcome measure is heart rate variability, which is measured at the first acupuncture, as well as the last acupuncture. Discussion. Completion of this trial will help to identify the role of deqi sensation in acupuncture effect for tinnitus and reveal a