| Research Background:In recent years, with the increasing competition among various industries and increasing pressure of people’s work and life, incidence of anxiety disorder is also rising,especially among young people, and seriously affecting the normal life of patients.Incidence of generalized anxiety disorder among China’s general population varies from 2% to 4.7%, and some of these patients have severely damaged social function. Domestic and foreign experts have predicted that GAD (Generalized anxiety disorder) will become one of the major diseases with disability and mortality by 2020. The treatment of anxiety disorder is normally a long period. Patients with the first attack are suggested to be given a treatment for consecutive 6 months, while patients suffering recurrence are suggested to receive treatment for 3-5 years. Patients who have long been applied with Western medicine therapy will show drug dependence in certain degree. Moreover, due to shortcomings like in-between interaction, incompatibility, adverse reactions, side effects,the drug therapy is inappropriate for long-term use. Although traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) has a unique overall concept for GAD treatment, with advantages such as targeted dialectical treatment, flexible principle-method-recipe-medicines, good and lasting efficacy, high safety and small side effects, but in the current clinical treatment,TCM is less superior than Western medicine due to such shortcomings as slower onset,long course of treatment, inconvenient carriage of decoction preparation, time and energy-consuming artificial decoction, uncontrollable influence factors in machine decoction, bad taste, poor medication compliance, making it difficult for patients to persist taking medicine for long-term. Currently, biofeedback technology provides a new way of thinking and approach for treatment of anxiety disorder. Many studies have also shown that biofeedback therapy is safe,effective, without adverse reactions. Most clinical studies in China focus on its auxiliary treatment in aspect of improving efficacy and reducing side effects, while researches on use of biofeedback therapy alone to treat anxiety have rarely been reported.Research methods:In this study, 60 GAD patients were randomly divided into biofeedback group and TCM group, each containing 30 patients. During treatment process, each group removed 1 case, therefore there were remaining 29 patients in each group. TCM group received addition and subtraction treatment of Chinese medicine formula according to syndrome type, with one dose of decoction daily served in two times (in the morning and evening)or pills taken with warm water twice a day (in the morning and evening). Biofeedback group received biofeedback treatment twice a week and 30 minutes per time, moreover relaxation exercise (30 minutes) was taken 2 times a day. The course of treatment lasted for 6 weeks.The research methods in this study mainly include randomized controlled clinical research, scale measurement and SAS9.0 statistical software. All recorded data (except expulsion case) were statistically analyzed and processed by SAS9.0 software. The inter-group, intra-group quantitative data before and after treatment was compared and analyzed by Z test or t test, while the quantitative data were analyzed by χ2 test. The quantitative data were statistically described by mean ± standard deviation ( X ± s), and one-way analysis of variance was conducted for the indexes. Inter-group difference was compared using LSD for equal variance while rank sum test for heterogeneity of variance.Binary classification count data was subjected to χ2 test, continuous correction χ2 test or Fisher exact test, and grade data were tested by CMH. All the statistical tests were two-sided tests, the difference was of statistical significance when P <0.05.Research result:There were no significant differences in age, sex, TCM syndromes, education level,occupation and total score of the patients between the biofeedback group and the TCM group before treatment. The results showed that:① According to Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA), the total effective rate was 86.2% and the ineffective rate was 13.8% in the TCM group;While the total effective rate was 82.8% and the ineffective rate was 17.2% in the biofeedback group. There was no significant difference(P> 0.05), indicating that biofeedback therapy and traditional Chinese medicine treatment of generalized anxiety is equivalent.② According to Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI),the total effective rate was 82.8% and the ineffective rate was 17.2% in the TCM group;While the total effective rate was 79.3% and the ineffective rate was 20.7% in the biofeedback group. There was no significant difference in sleep quality improvement between the two groups (P> 0.05),indicating that Biofeedback therapy and traditional Chinese medicine treatment have a equivalent effect on improving sleep quality in patients with generalized anxiety.③According to the total score of HAMA and PSQI, before and after treatment,there was significant difference in patients of biofeedback group (P <0.05), which indicated that biofeedback therapy had significant effect on improving the clinical symptoms and sleep quality of GAD patients.conclusion:According to the results of this study, it can be concluded that biofeedback treatment can achieve similar therapeutic effect as TCM treatment in treating generalized anxiety disorder. Biofeedback treatment can significantly improve the patient’s clinical symptoms and sleep quality, with advantages including simple operation, safe and reliable, no adverse reactions and so on. Patients benefit a lot, it is worth to promote continually in clinical use. |
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