OBJECTIVE: To systematically evaluate the curative effect of acupuncture on post-stroke depression (PSD). METHODS: The internet was used to retrieve the Wanfang Medical Data System, Chinese Periodical Net, the Weipu Information Resources System, PubMed and the Cochrane Library Database. Relevant articles, up to September 2010, were manually retrieved. These papers included studies that had performed random and semi-random control trials for the use of acupuncture to treat PSD. Fifteen random control tests involving 1096 patients were included in this study and individual cases, interventional measures and curative effects were extracted from this research. Grade methodological quality evaluation and meta-analysis were performed on these studies. RESULTS: Comparison between the acupuncture group and the Western medicine group for the curative rate on PSD revealed an OR of 1.48, 95% CI = [1.11 1.97] and P=0.008. Comparison of obviously effective rate shows that OR=1.39, 95% CI=[1.08 1.80] and P=0.01. Comparison of effective rate shows that OR=0.83, 95%CI=[0.63 1.09] and P=0.18. CONCLUSION: Comparison between the acupuncture group and Western medicine group in treating PSD revealed that there is a statistical difference in curative rate and remarkably effective rate, but no difference in effective rate. (C) 2012 JTCM. All rights reserved.