Tuina (massage) therapy for diarrhea in COVID-19: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: In the beginning of December 2019, the novel coronavirus pneumonia was first detected in Wuhan, China. Its widespread infectivity and strong pathogenicity has posed a great threat to public health, seriously affecting social production and life. Accumulating evidence suggests that gastrointestinal symptoms, such as diarrhea, are common among patients with COVID-19. Tuina (massage) therapy is 1 of the widely employed complementary and alternative medicine interventions in the world. It can act on the subcutaneous muscular layer, enhance the local blood circulation and tissue metabolism of the skin, thus exert its effects on digestive systems and alleviate aversive diarrhea symptoms. This systematic review and meta-analysis will summarize the current evidence of tuina (massage) used as an intervention for diarrhea symptoms in COVID-19.

Methods: We will search the following electronic databases for randomized controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of massage therapy in treating exercise-induced fatigue: China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang and Pubmed Database, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Excerpta Medica database and MEDLINE. Each database will be searched from inception to June 2020. The entire process will include study selection, data extraction, risk of bias assessment and meta-analyses.

Results: This proposed study will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of massage therapy for diarrhea symptoms in COVID-19 patients. The outcomes will include the improvement of diarrhea symptoms and adverse effect.

Conclusions: This proposed systematic review will evaluate the existing evidence on the effectiveness and safety of massage therapy for diarrhea symptoms in COVID-19 patients.Dissemination and ethics: The results of this review will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication. Because all of the data used in this systematic review and meta-analysis has been published, this review does not require ethical approval. Furthermore, all data will be analyzed anonymously during the review process.