Objective To assess the clinical effectiveness and safety of compound glycyrrhizin combined with acitretin for psoriasis. Methods The databases such as PubMed, The Cochrane Library, SpringerLink, CNKI, VIP, WanFang Data and CBM were searched to collect the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about compound glycyrrhizin combined with acitretin vs. acitretin alone for psoriasis. Meanwhile, The Chinese Journal of Dermatovenereology, China Journal of Leprosy and Skin Diseases and the grey literature were also searched. The retrieval time was from January 2000 to March 2012. According to the Cochrane Reviewer’s Handbook, two reviewers independently screened the literature, extracted the data and assessed the methodological quality of the included studies. Then the meta-analysis was performed using RevMan5.0 software. Results A total of 17 RCTs involving 1 365 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, the regimen of compound glycyrrhizin combined with acitretin was superior to acitretin alone; there were significant differences in the total effective rate (OR=3.39, 95%CI 2.55 to 4.52, Plt;0.000 01) and in the incidence of skin and mucous membrane dryness (OR=0.54, 95%CI 0.32 to 0.98, P=0.04), skin erythema (OR=0.43, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.76, P=0.004), elevated AST and ALT (OR=0.13, 95%CI 0.04 to 0.41, P=0.000 5) and elevated blood lipid (OR=0.48, 95%CI 0.30 to 0.77, P=0.002). But no significant difference was found in the incidence of dry and cracked lips (OR=0.50, 95%CI 0.10 to 2.50, P=0.40). There was publication bias shown by funnel plot analysis. Conclusion The compound glycyrrhizin combined with acitretin for psoriasis can obviously increase the cure rate and effective rate, and reduce the incidence of adverse reaction, such as dryness of skin and mucous membrane, skin erythema, elevated AST and ALT, and elevated blood lipid. For the limitation of quality and quantity of included studies, this conclusion still needs to be proved by conducting more high quality researches.