The data of this review was collected from the Web of Science (WoS) including SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, BKCI-S, BKCI-SSH, ESCI, and CCR-EXPANDE on August 31,2018. The search strategy consisted of three parts. First, we listed the index words about ‘acupuncture therapy’ such as acupuncture, acupuncture point, ear acupuncture, body acupuncture, auricular acupuncture, electroacupuncture, electro-acupuncture, moxi-bustion. All language and all document type were included with the timespan from 1999 to 2018. By this query, 17604 records was generated.
Second, the topic search focused on the index words about ‘insomnia’ such as sleep initiation, maintenance disorders, disorders of initiating and maintaining sleep, primary insomnia, transient insomnia, secondary insomnia, sleeplessness, insomnia disorder, sleep initiation dysfunction. The language, the document type and the timespan were setted as same as the first query. This query resulted in 21893 records.
Then, we combined the first query and the second query to find documents focused on the acupuncture in insomnia. A total of 292 records was obtained. The topic search queries were in Table 1.

The topic search queries

SetResultsSearch query
#3292

#2 AND #1

Indexes = SCI-EXPANDED,SSCI,A&HCI,CPCI-S,CPCI-SSH,BKCI-S,BKCI-SSH,ESCI,CCR-EXPANDE Timespan = 1999–2018

#221893

(TS = (insomnia OR sleep Initiation and maintenance disorders OR disorders of initiating and maintaining sleep OR primary insomnia OR transient insomnia OR secondary insomnia OR sleeplessness OR insomnia disorder OR sleep initiation dysfunction))

Indexes = SCI-EXPANDED,SSCI,A&HCI,CPCI-S,CPCI-SSH,BKCI-S,BKCI-SSH,ESCI,CCR-EXPANDE Timespan = 1999–2018

#117604(TS = (acupuncture therapy OR acupuncture OR acupuncture point OR Acupuncture, Ear OR body acupuncture OR Auricular Acupuncture OR Electroacupuncture OR electro-acupuncture OR Moxibustion)) Indexes = SCI-EXPANDED,SSCI,A&HCI,CPCI-S,CPCI-SSH,BKCI-S,BKCI-SSH,ESCI,CCR-EXPANDE Timespan = 1999–2018
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