Paediatric massage for treatment of acute diarrhoea in children: a meta-analysis
Gao L, Jia C, Huang H · BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine · 2018 September 18
DOI 10.1186/s12906-018-2324-4
Objective
To investigate the clinical effectiveness of paediatric massage for treating acute diarrhoea in children compared with pharmacotherapy.
Conclusions
Paediatric massage was associated with better clinical effective rates, clinical cure rates, and cure times than pharmacotherapy for acute diarrhoea in children, although the evidence quality was low because of a high risk of bias in the included studies.
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Insights
Paediatric massage appeared more effective than drug treatment for childhood acute diarrhoea, although the underlying evidence was of low quality.
This meta-analysis searched seven medical databases through April 2018 for randomized controlled trials involving children with acute diarrhoea. It compared paediatric massage, used alone or alongside other non-drug approaches, with pharmacological treatment and assessed overall clinical improvement, cure rates, and time to recovery.
Across the included studies, paediatric massage was associated with greater clinical improvement and cure rates than drug treatment, and children receiving massage generally recovered sooner. However, substantial risk of bias in the underlying studies meant that confidence in these apparent benefits was limited.
