Objectives:To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Guipi Decoction (归脾汤,GPD) as an adjunctive in the treatment of depression.Methods:A review of all relevant studies retrieved from a search of the following databases were conducted without any language restriction:Excerpt Medica Database (EMBASE),PubMed,Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials,China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI),VIP Information,Wanfang Data,and the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database.Papers published until February 2013 were taken into consideration.The analysis was performed using the Cochrane software Revman 5.1.Results:Nine randomized controlled trials involving 620 patients with depression were included in this review.The meta-analysis revealed that compared with antidepressant therapy alone,treatment with a combination of GPD and an antidepressant drug significantly improved the symptoms of depression [weighted mean difference (WMD):-3.09;95％ confidence interval (CI):-4.11 to-2.07] and increased the rates of effectiveness (OR:4.75;95％ CI:2.66-8.51) as well as recovery (OR:1.73;95％ CI:1.17-2.56).The adverse effects of GPD were not found to be significant in these studies.Conclusions:The findings of this meta-analysis were in keeping with the notion that GPD formulations were effective in the treatment of depression without causing any severe adverse effects.However,currently available evidence was of low quality and therefore inadequate to justify a strong recommendation of using GPD formulations in the management of depression.