Effect of Valerian on Sleep Disorders of Postmenopausal Women in Iran: A Systematic Review

Menopause-related sleep disorders do not necessarily affect the amount of sleep, but they affect the quality of sleep. This study aims to review the results of clinical trials on the effect of valerian on sleep disorders of postmenopausal women in Iran.

In this systematic review study, a search was first conducted in SID, IranMedex, PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane library, EMBASE, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases for the related articles published until December 2021 using keywords based on PICO strategy and MeSH terms including insomnia, menopause, valerian, sleep disorders, herbal medicine, complementary medicine, and clinical trial in Persian and English with Boolean operators (OR, AND) . The Jaded scale was used to evaluate the quality of the articles.

Of 389 articles found by the initial search, 6 studies (sample size= 637) were reviewed. Of these, 3 studies examined the effect of valerian on sleep disorders, 2 studies examined the effect of valerian on sleep quality, and 1 study examined the effect of valerian on the sleep dimensions of postmenopausal women.

Valerian can be considered as a safe treatment for sleep disorders of postmenopausal women in Iran. Further studies are recommended to provide evidence for the best dose of valerian with the least side effects.