Acupuncture-related therapies as an adjunct to opioid agonist therapy during active dose reduction in adults with opioid use disorder: protocol for a scoping review.

INTRODUCTION: Opioid agonist therapy (OAT), most commonly methadone or buprenorphine, is the standard pharmacological treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). Although many patients undergo dose reduction during treatment, this process is frequently complicated by withdrawal symptoms, psychological distress and opioid craving. Acupuncture-related therapies have been used as adjunctive interventions during OAT for more than two decades and have been evaluated in both Chinese- and English-language clinical studies. However, existing reviews have focused on specific clinical populations, restricted study designs or predated recent trials. The available evidence regarding acupuncture-related therapies during active OAT dose reduction has not been comprehensively mapped. This scoping review aims to map the extent, range and nature of the available evidence on acupuncture-related therapies used as an adjunct to OAT during active dose reduction in adults with OUD.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This scoping review will be conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews and reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Searches will be conducted from database inception in PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, CNKI, Wanfang Data and VIP, with no restrictions on publication date or language. Eligible studies will include adults with OUD receiving an acupuncture-related therapy as an adjunct to OAT during active dose reduction. Randomised controlled trials, non-randomised controlled studies, controlled before-and-after studies, single-arm studies and case series involving at least five participants will be included; case reports with fewer than five participants, animal or in vitro studies, qualitative studies and review articles will be excluded. Two reviewers will independently undertake study selection and data charting using a piloted standardised form. Findings will be summarised using descriptive statistics, evidence-gap mapping, and a structured narrative synthesis informed by relevant principles from the Synthesis Without Meta-analysis reporting guideline.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval is not required because this review will use published and publicly accessible data. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication and conference presentation.

STUDY REGISTRATION: Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Q5M6Y).