Standardisierte Gruppenohrakupunktur nach dem NADA-Protokoll bei allgemeinpsychiatrisch erkrankten Patienten einer Schweizer Tagesklinik

Abstract

BackgroundIn a major psychiatric hospital of Kanton St. Gallen, Switzerland, the NADA-Protocol has been used for 12 years. In the psychiatric day care unit treatment was accompanied by an evaluative study during 15 months. ObjectiveThe study aimed to investigate the effect of ear-acupuncture according to the NADA-protocol on patients’ general mental state in addition to general treatment in a psychiatric day care unit with a mixed patient population.The treatment was applied to 64 patients once a week in a group session over a period of 15 months. Total treatments were 541.15 mental state characteristics were evaluated. Evaluation was performed after a maximum of 10 sessions. ResultsThe majority of analyzed symptoms showed a linear decreasing trend, which indicates that with ongoing acupuncture treatment, the symptoms continuously and significantly lessened. Gender differences have not been observed. In total, NADA-ear-acupuncture proved to be a therapeutic method of complementary medicine with little side effects, which may be applied in a mixed patient cohort even to patients with serious psychiatric illness, resulting in part in a highly significant improvement of state. DiscussionA more extended sample and execution of comparative analyses is needed in order to make a more exact statement on the required number of treatments, dependence of age and gender, and diagnoses.