The impact of exercise intervention for patients undergoing hemodialysis on fatigue and quality of life: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: This study aims to determine the therapeutic efficacy of exercise interventions for patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) on fatigue and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).

Methods: This review will only include randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The search strategy will be performed in 4 English databases, 4 Chinese databases, Clinical Trials.gov, and the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. All English or Chinese RCTs, published from inception to May 31, 2020, will be sought. Two reviewers will screen, select studies, extract data, and assess quality independently. Primary outcome is fatigue assessed by questionnaire. The methodological quality including the risk of bias of the included studies will be evaluated using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale. Stata 12.0 software will be used for heterogeneity assessment, generating funnel-plots, data synthesis, subgroup analysis, and sensitivity analysis.

Results: We will provide some more practical and targeted results investigating the effect of exercise interventions for patients undergoing HD on fatigue and HRQoL in the current meta-analysis, and point out the main limitation of previous studies.

Conclusion: The study will provide recent evidence for evaluating the therapeutic efficacy of exercise interventions for patients undergoing HD on fatigue and HRQoL.

Registration number: INPLASY202050071 (DOI: 10.37766/inplasy2020.5.0071).