{"claimId":"clm_ec_b7-mel-stress","version":1,"status":"current","verdict":"Melatonin for stress: Grade B at moderate certainty. Cochrane review of 27 RCTs (2319 participants): melatonin reduced preoperative anxiety versus placebo, with effects broadly comparable to benzodiazepines such as midazolam in the trials that compared them. Evidence for postoperative anxiety was less certain. This is an acute, perioperative-anxiety context, not general everyday stress.","direction":"benefit","magnitude":{"metric":"other","value":null,"unit":"","ci95":null,"humanReadable":"Cochrane review of 27 RCTs (2319 participants): melatonin reduced preoperative anxiety versus placebo, with effects broadly comparable to benzodiazepines such as midazolam in the trials that compared them. Evidence for postoperative anxiety was less certain. This is an acute, perioperative-anxiety context, not general everyday stress.","baselineAbsoluteRisk":null},"certainty":"moderate","clinicalMeaning":"small_but_potentially_useful","applicability":{"appliesTo":["adults undergoing surgery"],"doesNotApply":["children"],"unknown":["pregnancy"]},"safetyQualifiers":["uncertain_with_ssri"],"evidenceBundleId":"eb_ec_b7-mel-stress","citations":[{"pmid":"33319916","design":"peer-reviewed"}],"reviewedBy":{"name":"Substrate editorial","credential":"Independent research collective"},"reviewedAt":"2026-07-16T16:23:42.191Z","dateModified":"2026-07-16T16:23:42.191Z","methodologyVersion":"v1","methodologyDoi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21364236","canonicalUrl":"https://evidencebased.info/interventions/melatonin/stress","attribution":"Substrate (evidencebased.info), claim clm_ec_b7-mel-stress v1, reviewed 2026-07-16","license":"CC-BY-4.0 — attribution with link required"}