ObjectivesTo systematically review the efficacy of telephone-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for insomnia. MethodsDatabases including PubMed, EMbase, PsycINFO, The Cochrane Library (Issue 7, 2015), CBM and CNKI were searched from inception to July 2015, to collect randomized controlled trials (RCT) about telephone-delivered CBT for insomnia. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, RevMan 5.2 software was used to performing meta-analysis. ResultsFive RCTs involving 322 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that:Compared with the waiting group, the sleep onset latency was shorter (MD=-30.31, 95% CI -40.41 to -20.22, P<0.00001), the waking after sleep onset was shorter (MD=-15.59, 95% CI -24.09 to -7.09, P=0.0003) and the sleep efficiency was higher (MD=11.02, 95% CI 7.87 to 14.18, P<0.00001) in the telephone-delivered CBT group, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in total sleep time (MD=13.45, 95% CI -37.01 to 63.92, P=0.60). ConclusionCurrent evidence shows, telephone-delivered CBT is effective for insomnia. Due to limited quantity and quality of the included studies, the above conclusion needs to be verified by more large-scale, high quality RCTs.