SynthesisFrontiers in public health2026
Effects of Tai Chi on Mental Health in college students: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: To systematically evaluate and quantitatively synthesize the effects of Tai Chi interventions on the mental health of college students. Methods: This study was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses and was registered in PROSPERO (CRD420261329121). PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane Library, EBSCO, CNKI, Wanfang Database, and the China Science and Technology Journal Database were systematically searched from database inception to February 1, 2026. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the effects of Tai Chi interventions on the mental health of college students were included. Statistical analyses were performed using Review Manager 5.4. For continuous outcomes, standardized mean differences (SMDs) or mean differences (MDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. A random-effects model was used to pool the effect sizes. Between-study heterogeneity was assessed using Cochran's Q test and the I Results: A total of 12 randomized controlled trials involving 1,057 college students were included (554 in the intervention group and 503 in the control group). The meta-analysis showed that Tai Chi intervention significantly reduced depression symptoms among college students (SMD = -0.67, 95% CI [-0.90, -0.43], Conclusion: The present meta-analysis provides quantitative evidence that Tai Chi interventions have beneficial effects on improving mental health among college students, particularly in reducing depression, anxiety, and stress. Although Tai Chi also appears to improve sleep quality, the relatively high heterogeneity across studies indicates that further high-quality randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm these findings and to determine optimal intervention protocols. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO: CRD420261329121, https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420261329121.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.