Abstract:Summarize and analyze the reporting of outcome indicators in current clinical randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on acupuncture intervention for gastrointestinal dysfunction in sepsis, summarize the types of outcome indicators, and put forward appropriate suggestions to promote the progress of clinical research. Four Chinese and three English databases and one clinical trial registry were systematically searched to screen out RCTs of needleassisted treatment for gastrointestinal dysfunction in sepsis. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. After screening, a total of 30 clinical studies were finally retrieved, including 28 Chinese and two English studies. Thirty-nine outcome indicators were extracted and mainly summarized into eight categories: Traditional Chinese Medicine syndromes, clinical effective rate, gastrointestinal function, disease severity, imaging examinations, serological markers, inflammatory indicators, and safety. Most studies had problems such as unclear risk of bias, poor quality of research method ologies, confusion of primary and secondary outcome measures, nonstandard use of outcome measures, and lack of acupuncture characteristics. We therefore collected and summarized the core outcome indicators of acupuncture treatment for gastrointestinal dysfunction in sepsis, clarified the limitations of the outcome indicators of acupuncture treatment for gastrointestinal dysfunction in sepsis, and identified research deficiencies to improve the method ological quality of clinical research.