In this study, a 12-week pragmatic, randomized, double-blinded clinical trial will be conducted to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture for the treatment of long Covid neuropsychiatric symptoms and provide reference for clinical non-drug treatment.

This is a pragmatic, randomized, double-blinded clinical trial on acupuncture for treating neuropsychiatric symptoms in long Covid patients. A total of 160 participants will be diagnosed by a registered Chinese medicine practitioner and randomly assigned to the acupuncture and the control group with a 1:1 ratio. The acupuncture group will receive 24 sessions of interventions during a 12-week treatment duration (2 sessions per week) and will be followed up at week 18. The control group will only receive conventional therapy.

Inclusion Criteria:

• meet the clinical diagnosis of Long COVID by the World Health Organization (WHO), with no neuropsychiatric symptoms 1 year before infection with Covid-19, and continue to have at least one neuropsychiatric symptom for 2 months after SARS-CoV-2 turned negative 3 months above;
• aged 12 to 80 years;
• willing and able to consent, and complete all assessment and study procedures

Exclusion Criteria:

• patients with a history of chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms;
• cardiovascular diseases pre-existing to the Covid-19 episode such as arrhythmia, heart failure, myocardial infarction, and patients with cardiac pacemakers;
• documented pre-existing history of psychiatric illness, including substance abuse;
• suicidal tendencies (attempted suicide in the 12 months before the study);
• any chronic or remote neurological disorder (i.e. stroke, head trauma, epilepsy, tumor);
• those who participated in other clinical trials within one month;
• pregnant or lactating female patients;
• have surgery within two months before the study or will have a scheduled surgery during the study;
• acute brain injury or acute encephalopathy from another etiology than Covid-19 (e.g., sepsis, liver or renal failure, alcohol or drug withdrawal, drug toxicity);
• open-heart cardiac surgery or cardiac arrest during the last 6 months;
• patients who received acupuncture treatment 1 month before the start of the study;
• patients who were unable to complete the assessment during screening due to severe mental, cognitive, or emotional impairment

The participants will be assigned to the treatment group or the control group according to the ratio of 1:1. This process is carried out by an independent researcher (Research Assistant), and the evaluators and outcome assessor will not know the grouping of the participants until the end of the study.