Acupuncture for PTSD
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02869646. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Acupuncture for PTSD in Combat Veterans
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Current treatments for Veterans with PTSD include medications and therapy where the patient talks about traumatic events in order to desensitize to them. While these treatments work for many, a large minority of Veterans do not want medications or exposure therapy. The investigators developed an acupuncture (ACU) treatment for PTSD in order to broaden treatment options. The investigators' first study showed that it helped most people. However, the investigators need better scientific evidence that it works by comparing ACU to a placebo, such as "sham" acupuncture (fewer needles in non-important sites) and determining if ACU alters abnormal physiology in PTSD. In this study 90 Veterans will be randomly assigned (like a coin flip) to receive either ACU or sham. The investigators expect to find that the ACU treated patients have more improvement in PTSD and in physiology (less startle reaction - assessed non-invasively using skin sensors) than the patients in the sham group. This study will provide information to support the use of acupuncture for PTSD at the VA, which will expand treatment options.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT02869646
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 92 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 55 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Apr 4, 2018
- Primary completion
- Jun 14, 2022
- Completion
- Dec 29, 2022
- Last update posted
- Apr 17, 2024
2018 – 2022
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VA Long Beach Healthcare System, Long Beach, CA | Long Beach | California | 90822 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02869646, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Apr 17, 2024 · Synced Sep 7, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT02869646 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.