To systematically evaluate the intervention effect of acceptance commitment therapy on anxiety disorder.

The full-text databases of Web of Science Core Collection, MEDLINE, KCI-Korean Journal Database, SciELO Citation Index, SpringerLink, Pubmed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CNKI Wanfang and Weipu were searched and randomized controlled studies related to acceptance commitment therapy for patients with anxiety disorder were collected.All randomized controlled studies met the criterion were included.Meanwhile, the literature quality of the included literatures was evaluated.The outcome indicators such as anxiety index, psychological flexibility and quality of life index were selected, and RevMan 5.3 software was used to analyze the literature data that met the inclusion criteria.

A total of 12 studies with 1 062 patients were included, including 513 cases in ACT group and 549 cases in control group.Meta analysis showed that ACT can effectively reduce anxiety level of patients with anxiety disorder (MD=-0.58, 95%CI: -0.85- -0.32, P<0.001), anxiety level in follow-up period (MD=-0.42, 95%CI: -0.75- -0.08, P=0.01), improving psychological flexibility (MD=0.46, 95%CI: 0.24~0.68, P<0.001); In the study of CBT(cognitive behavioral therapy) as the control group, there was no significant difference between ACT group and control group, among which after intervention (MD =-0.06, 95%CI: -0.47- 0.36, P=0.79), follow-up period (MD = 0.17, 95%CI: -0.07-0.41, P=0.16) .In the study with the control group as the blank control, ACT can reduce the anxiety level of patients with anxiety disorder (MD =-0.76, 95%CI: -0.97- -0.56, P<0.001), and the difference is statistically significant.Excluding the non-blank control study, ACT can reduce the anxiety level of patients with anxiety disorder (MD =-0.82, 95%CI: -1.09--0.55, P<0.001) in the studies where the proportion of women is greater than or equal to 70%.In the study of 50%-70% females, ACT can reduce the anxiety level of patients with anxiety disorder (MD =-0.68, 95%CI: -1.09 --0.28, P=0.01). All the differences were statistically significant.There was no significant difference between ACT and the control group for quality of life(MD=0.24, 95%CI: -0.01-0.49, P=0.06).

ACT has a certain effect on patients with anxiety disorder, which not only improves the anxiety level of patients, but also keeps the effect of anxiety improvement during the follow-up period, and the improvement of psychological flexibility has also been verified.The immediate and long-term efficacy of ACT is similar to that of CBT, which further improve the reliability of ACT curative effect.Gender difference has not been confirmed for the therapeutic effect.ACT has no obvious improvement on the quality of life, and the conclusion of this study needs more randomized controlled studies with large samples and high quality to verify it.

Acceptance and commitment therapy; Anxiety disorder; Randomized controlled trial; Meta-analysis