Search Assignment Sample For Ireland Students

For information and reference only – not to be submitted as your own work. Use this extract to see how theory, evidence and professional accountability can be balanced in 2,000 words, then build your own argument from your lecture slides, your chosen sources and your university’s referencing guidelines.

This model extract answers a Year 2 nursing assignment in a Physical Health and Wellbeing module: discuss the underlying theoretical concepts of one complementary therapy that could benefit people experiencing mental health difficulties. It uses acupuncture, the therapy most often covered in this type of module, and follows Harvard referencing. Part of the full 2,000-word answer is shown here; the cover sheet and word count are left out.

Introduction: complementary, alternative and integrative care

A therapy is complementary when it is used alongside conventional care, alternative when it is used in place of it, and integrative when the two are coordinated around the whole person (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), 2021). The distinction matters for a nurse. A person who uses acupuncture while continuing prescribed medication and psychological therapy is in a very different position from one who stops treatment in favour of it.

This essay discusses acupuncture because it has a defined theoretical system, a body of neuroscience research and a presence in mental health services internationally. It argues that acupuncture rests on two parallel explanatory frameworks, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western neurophysiology, that the clinical evidence for mental health difficulties is still uncertain, and that the nurse’s role is to support informed, safe and recovery-focused choices rather than to endorse or dismiss the therapy.

Underlying theoretical concepts

Traditional Chinese Medicine framework

In TCM, health is understood as a dynamic balance rather than the absence of disease. Vital energy, qi, is said to circulate through a network of channels known as meridians, and needling specific points is intended to restore its smooth flow (Kaptchuk, 2000). The framework is relational. Yin and yang describe complementary qualities, such as rest and activity or cool and warm, and illness is interpreted as a pattern of imbalance between them.

Mental distress is not treated as a separate category. Low mood, anxiety and poor sleep are read as expressions of disturbed organ systems and emotions, for example liver qi stagnation. This resonates with holistic nursing, which also treats mind and body as inseparable. It does not, however, translate directly into biomedical diagnoses such as major depressive disorder, and qi and meridians have not been shown to exist as anatomical structures. A critical answer should say this plainly rather than present the concepts as established physiology.

Western neurophysiological explanations

Researchers have proposed mechanisms that do not depend on qi. The oldest is gate control theory, which proposed that activity in large-diameter nerve fibres can inhibit pain signals at the spinal cord (Melzack and Wall, 1965). Needle stimulation is thought to engage similar inhibitory pathways. Animal and human studies suggest that electroacupuncture at different frequencies releases different endogenous opioid peptides and other neuropeptides (Han, 2003), and a review of the neural mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia describes involvement of the spinal cord, brainstem and higher brain regions (Zhao, 2008).

For mental health, the proposed link is indirect. Pain and distress share some neural circuitry, and stress-regulating systems, including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and monoamine neurotransmitters, have been suggested as targets. These ideas are plausible but remain hypotheses, much of the mechanistic work concerns pain rather than mood, and not all findings are consistent. The table below compares the two frameworks.

Expectation, placebo and the therapeutic relationship

A third explanation concerns context. Kaptchuk (2002) argued that the ritual of healing, including time, attention, touch, a credible explanation and a caring practitioner, can produce real improvements through expectation and reduced anxiety, even where the technique has no specific action. For nurses this is not a trivial point. Many of the same ingredients, being listened to and having a treatment explained, are part of good therapeutic relationships in mental health nursing generally. A critical essay should therefore ask how much of any benefit comes from needling and how much from the relationship around it.

If you are struggling to balance theory with evidence in a nursing essay, our nursing assignment help page explains how subject specialists can guide your structure and referencing.

Application to mental health difficulties

Depression

The most cited synthesis is a Cochrane review of 64 randomised controlled trials involving 7,104 participants (Smith et al., 2018). Its conclusions were cautious. Evidence that acupuncture reduces depression severity compared with no treatment, and compared with control (sham) acupuncture, was of low certainty. Evidence on acupuncture alone or added to medication, compared with medication alone, was of very low certainty, and the effect compared with psychological therapy was unclear. The authors also noted that adverse events were poorly reported and called for high-quality trials.

Guidance reflects this uncertainty. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, 2022) guideline on depression in adults sets out a menu of psychological and pharmacological options and does not recommend acupuncture. NICE is a UK body, and Irish services draw on a range of guidance, so students should say which framework they are using and why.

Anxiety

A systematic review of 13 clinical trials of acupuncture and electroacupuncture for anxiety disorders found that study methods and quality varied widely, although the authors concluded that acupuncture appeared effective and associated with fewer side effects than conventional treatment, and recommended further research (Amorim et al., 2018). The sensible reading is that the signal is promising but not strong enough to displace established treatments.

Taken together, the evidence supports a measured position. Acupuncture may offer some people relaxation, a sense of agency and relief from distressing symptoms, but it should not be presented as a substitute for evidence-based treatment.

Holistic, recovery-oriented care and the nurse’s role in Ireland

Irish mental health policy places recovery at the centre of service delivery. Sharing the Vision (Department of Health, 2020), the ten-year national policy, lists recovery alongside trauma-informed care, human rights, partnership and learning as guiding principles. Recovery here means a person-defined journey, not only symptom reduction, and a therapy that helps someone feel calmer, more in control or more engaged with their care can contribute to that journey even when its specific effects are modest.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI, 2021) Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics is built on five principles: respecting dignity, taking professional responsibility and accountability, maintaining the quality of practice, building trust and protecting confidentiality, and working collaboratively. Applied to acupuncture, these principles suggest four practical responsibilities.

1. Respect the person’s beliefs and preferences, including cultural ones, without judgement.
2. Give honest, balanced information about benefits, uncertainty and risks, so that decisions are informed.
3. Advise referral to a suitably qualified and regulated practitioner, and do not perform techniques outside your own scope of competence.
4. Communicate with the multidisciplinary team, document the person’s use of the therapy and make sure it complements rather than replaces prescribed treatment.

Safety also needs attention. Needling carries risks, for example bleeding in someone taking anticoagulants, infection from poor technique and distress for a person with needle phobia or a history of trauma. Because adverse events are under-reported in trials (Smith et al., 2018), absence of evidence of harm should not be read as evidence of safety.

Limitations and critique

Four limitations deserve discussion. First, blinding is difficult, because practitioners know whether they are using real or sham needling, and sham controls may themselves have physiological effects. Second, trials differ in point selection, number of sessions and style of acupuncture (traditional, Western medical or electroacupuncture), which makes pooled results hard to interpret. Third, mechanistic research is dominated by pain studies and animal models. Fourth, the TCM concepts cannot be tested in biomedical terms, so a nurse should present them as a cultural and conceptual framework rather than as proven science.

These weaknesses do not mean the therapy has no value to individuals. They mean that claims should be proportionate, and that an evidence-informed nurse can hold two ideas together: that the person’s experience matters, and that the research remains unsettled.

Conclusion

Acupuncture is underpinned by a TCM framework of qi, meridians and yin-yang balance, by neurophysiological hypotheses involving endogenous opioids, stress regulation and pain gating, and by the effects of expectation and a supportive therapeutic relationship. Evidence for depression and anxiety is promising in places but of low or very low certainty, and national guidance does not currently recommend it for depression. Within Irish holistic and recovery-oriented care, the nurse’s task is to provide honest information, protect safety, respect choice and keep the person connected to proven treatment.

If you want a structured plan for your own version of this essay, see our coursework help for Irish students, or read the companion guide on how to write a complementary therapy essay for mental health nursing. You can also browse a related complementary therapies brief from UCC and the wider Ireland assignment questions library.

About the expert

References

Amorim, D., Amado, J., Brito, I., Fiuza, S.M., Amorim, N., Costeira, C. and Machado, J. (2018) ‘Acupuncture and electroacupuncture for anxiety disorders: a systematic review of the clinical research’, Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 31, pp. 31–37. doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2018.01.008.

Department of Health (2020) Sharing the Vision: a mental health policy for everyone. Dublin: Department of Health.

Han, J.S. (2003) ‘Acupuncture: neuropeptide release produced by electrical stimulation of different frequencies’, Trends in Neurosciences, 26(1), pp. 17–22.

Kaptchuk, T.J. (2000) The web that has no weaver: understanding Chinese medicine. 2nd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kaptchuk, T.J. (2002) ‘The placebo effect in alternative medicine: can the performance of a healing ritual have clinical significance?’, Annals of Internal Medicine, 136(11), pp. 817–825. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-136-11-200206040-00011.

Melzack, R. and Wall, P.D. (1965) ‘Pain mechanisms: a new theory’, Science, 150(3699), pp. 971–979.

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) (2021) Complementary, alternative, or integrative health: what’s in a name? Available at: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/complementary-alternative-or-integrative-health-whats-in-a-name (Accessed: 13 October 2026).

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (2022) Depression in adults: treatment and management (NG222). Available at: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng222 (Accessed: 13 October 2026).

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) (2021) Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Nurses and Registered Midwives. Dublin: NMBI.

Smith, C.A., Armour, M., Lee, M.S., Wang, L.-Q. and Hay, P.J. (2018) ‘Acupuncture for depression’, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (3), CD004046. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004046.pub4.

Zhao, Z.-Q. (2008) ‘Neural mechanism underlying acupuncture analgesia’, Progress in Neurobiology, 85(4), pp. 355–375.