Dry eye is one of the common diseases in ophthalmology. It affects not only patients' daily activities such as reading, carrying out professional work, using the computer, watching television, and driving, but also bodily health conditions such as bodily pain, discomfort and lower energy and vitality.~Currently, artificial tears are easily subscribed or used in the shape of OTC drugs. However, preservatives in artificial tears may exacerbate ocular surface inflammation and the safety of anti-inflammatory treatment is not well established.~Acupuncture, one of the most popular CAM interventions, showed some favourable effects over artificial tears for dry eye in several randomised controlled trials (RCTs). The evidence obtained from these trials is quite limited because all of these RCTs were conducted under high risk of biases. Therefore, well-designed RCTs are needed to establish the efficacy of acupuncture for dry eye.~In a clinical trial, cost-effectiveness and qualitative researches can be carried out parallely. Through this kind of mixed method approaches, various compartments, consisting acupuncture treatment effects are able to be revealed totally.~In this context, the investigators designed a multi-center randomized controlled trial, comparing acupuncture treatment and artificial tear drop with immunoassay for the change of tear cytokine concentration, cost effectiveness study and qualitative research in a mixed method approach.
The purpose of this study is to assess whether acupuncture is more effective than artificial tear drop in the treatment of dry eye.