The Tapping Evidence Base
Depression

The Effectiveness of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on Depression of Postmenopausal Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Mehdipour, A., Abedi, P., Ansari, S., Dastoorpoor, M. · Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine · 2021

Randomized trial👥 88 participants⚖️ vs. sham therapyModerate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Iran
In plain English. 88 postmenopausal women with mild-to-moderate depression were randomly assigned to eight weeks of daily tapping or a sham version of the therapy. The women doing real tapping saw their depression scores roughly halve, while the sham group barely improved. Because the comparison was a sham treatment rather than a fully established one like CBT, this is a solid but not the strongest possible test of tapping specifically.

What they found

88
people took part

Mean depression scores fell from 20.93 to 10.96 in the EFT group over 8 weeks of daily practice, versus 19.18 to 17.01 in the sham-therapy group (p=.001).

How the study worked

Who took partpostmenopausal women with mild-to-moderate depression recruited from a menopause clinic (n=88)
What they didIn a randomized controlled trial, participants were randomly assigned to receive tapping or a comparison condition, then measured and compared.
Compared withsham therapy
Measured withBeck Depression Inventory

💡 Where this could help

If this kind of drop in depression scores replicates against a stronger comparator, imagine a woman navigating the mood changes of menopause learning a technique she can administer to herself daily, for free, instead of being told her only options are medication or an expensive therapy referral. That could matter most for women whose depression during this transition is dismissed as 'just hormones' and left untreated.

🔬 What to study next

Depression during menopause is tied to shifting estrogen and HPA-axis activity, so an interesting next step is checking whether this improvement correlates with cortisol or inflammatory markers already used in menopause research, and whether actigraphy-tracked sleep or hot-flash frequency — itself a marker of autonomic activity — improves in parallel. Testing group or telehealth delivery through menopause clinics would also show whether this reaches women whose depression during this transition often goes untreated.

The full record

DesignRandomized trial
Participants88 people
Populationpostmenopausal women with mild-to-moderate depression recruited from a menopause clinic
Comparison groupsham therapy
Outcome measuresBeck Depression Inventory
JournalJournal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine
Year2021
CountryIran
LanguageEnglish
MethodEFT / tapping
Publication typeStudy / trial
Verification✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Mehdipour, A., Abedi, P., Ansari, S., & Dastoorpoor, M. (2021). The Effectiveness of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on Depression of Postmenopausal Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1515/jcim-2020-0245

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Depression

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THE TAPPING EVIDENCE BASE Depression 88 participants WHAT THEY FOUND Mean depression scores fell from 20.93 to10.96 in the EFT group over 8 weeks of dailypractice, versus 19.18 to… Randomized trial · 88 participants Mehdipour · 2021 · evidence.thetappingsolution.com